


Loophole

by OopsFanfiction



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Giving Ben Solo a friend, In the form of a tiny green alien, Luke Skywalker would never hurt his nephew, Not Canon Compliant, Reader is force-sensitive, Skewing timelines, Slow Burn Romance, The Mandalorian is a dad, age-gap romance, just go along with it, my poor attempt at smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:55:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 57,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22058908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OopsFanfiction/pseuds/OopsFanfiction
Summary: The Mandalorian accidentally makes a habit of picking up Force-Sensitives. You just happen to be one of them.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Baby Yoda and Ben Solo, Din Djarin/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader
Comments: 264
Kudos: 663





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> SO! I know that The Mandalorian is supposed to take place about five years after the battle of Yavin...but let's pretend it takes place a few years after that. Ben is about twelve. Okay? Great. Glad you agree.

Apparently, finding the Child’s species wasn’t as easy as he had assumed it would be. Granted, everyone he had encountered had zero idea what the Child was, so maybe he should have lowered his expectations. The only thing he could think of was searching for the sorcerers known as Jedi, hoping they’d know something more about his Foundling. It was like pulling teeth, asking some representative of the New Republic for any information on these so-called “Jedi.” He hated asking for help. Hated it. It was weakness. 

But, the stars seemed to smile at him. 

And when Leia Organa, war hero and all-around-terrifying woman, smiled at him and promised to help him, he called it luck. 

Flying to the small temple, hidden away from the chaos of the galaxy, had been strange. There was no jittery exhilaration churning his stomach with the thrill of a bounty hunt. There was only an odd sensation of harmony as he looked over the quaint temple and rolling, green hills. The Child was still sleeping in his pram as they breached the atmosphere but readily waddled beside him when they landed. Organa led the way as she exited her own starship, some slick new model that made the Razor Crest look like a junker. She said her own son was a Jedi youngling. She used terms like ‘Force-Sensitive’ and ‘Light side of the Force.’ The Force. The Force. The Force. It made no sense to Din. But he doubted it ever would. He just wanted this Foundling, this strange little creature that he’d some to care for so strongly, to find a place of belonging. 

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, didn’t seem to be an enemy but Din knew appearances could be deceiving. 

Luke’s blue eyes were kind as he looked at the Child, peeking out from behind Din’s legs. “I’ve seen only one of his kind before—and he was my teacher, my master. Taught me everything I know.” Skywalker crouched and held out a gloved hand. 

The Child cooed and then looked up at Din as if for approval. 

He paused. This would change everything. It would be a new beginning. He didn’t even know if he could come and visit. To see if the Child was doing well. To make sure he knew he had someone out there in the cold reaches of the galaxy who cared about him. But that wasn’t part of the code. Din knew it. 

But maybe…he could bend the Code. Just this once. 

“Mom?” 

Everyone pivoted at the sound of the voice. A lanky, dark-haired boy emerged from the temple with a crooked smile. He seemed so awkward, tugging at his strange robes as he stepped down the stone stairs toward their small group. He couldn’t have been older than 12. Just about Din’s age when he had taken the Creed. 

Leia quickly wrapped him in a hug. 

That must be her son. 

The boy looked down at the Child as Leia released him and his pouty lips pulled into a shy smile before he crouched down. “I’m Ben,” he said, holding out a hand. 

This time, the little green baby didn’t look to Din for guidance. He readily placed his tiny hand in Ben’s and cooed, chubby cheeks pushing out a small smile. 

As Din looked at Ben and his Foundling, he felt the strangest sense of peace.


	2. The Bounty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ho-kay. Sorry this chapter took so long. I wanted to get the initial conflict out of the way and set up the character dynamics. The response to the prologue has been more than I had anticipated and I am eternally grateful to each and every one of you. I hope you continue to like this story. 
> 
> I like to think that Din is a little more "open" since his time with Baby Yoda, but still, very much, emotionally constipated. 
> 
> And our dear Y/N is a bit of a brat. 
> 
> Enjoy. Please let me know what you think. xx

Y/N didn’t like Nar Shaddaa. Of course, one would have to be a bounty hunter, a pirate, or a spice trader to actually feel a sense of belonging to the moon. And she was none of those things. She just kept her head low, a pair of blasters on her thighs, and a sneer on her face she’d been told that could curdle blue milk. She earned credits in the fighting rings. The spectators had given her a name; KK. It had stemmed from her affinity for a certain move she always resorted to in the ring. A Keldabe kiss. The head-butt was only intensified by the simple band of beskar she had fashioned into a headband, holding her unruly hair back. Everyone assumed she’d been given the beskar as some sort of payment for a fight or a job. She didn’t correct them. 

It was a long, tedious story as to how she had found herself in the Outer Rim, in Hutt Space. But those were just a few more of her secrets. 

And not her largest one. 

“KK!” 

She looked and saw the only person she could even consider something close to a friend approaching, pushing her way through the busy street. It was Yenna. She was a Zabrak with twelve delicate horns circling the crown of her head. Her black hair was pulled into a tight braid and woven with golden cloth. “Yenna, tell me you’re bringing me something to do. I’m about to lose my mind if I have to watch another game of street sabacc end in a fist fight.” 

But Yenna didn’t offer her usual, sharp-toothed smile. Her decidedly delicate features were pulled tight with uncharacteristic worry as she reached her friend’s side. “You need to leave, now.” 

Y/N frowned. “I didn’t do anything this time.” 

Yenna shook her head, nearly panicking as she pulled Y/N into the nearest alley. “Nashi’s mad about the fight with Tarrick.” 

Y/N’s frown deepened at the sound of the Hutt’s name. Nashi ran their special place in hell, this handful of blocks of Nar Shaddaa, with an iron fist. “I won that fight.” Her bruised side was a testament to that. As was the large amount of credits now lining her pockets. Tarrick had put up a good fight but she’d won. That was that, wasn’t it?

“That is why you’re in trouble,” Yenna basically growled, but unsurprised with Y/N’s lack of ability to connect the dots. Maybe she’d been hit on the head too many times—or maybe her favorite move of a head-butt had actually short-circuited something in her brain. “Nashi told you to throw the fight.” 

“No, he didn’t.” 

“He said he did,” Yenna hissed. “Now he’s out a ton of credits and he wants you in chains.” 

“He probably wants to put me in a metal bikini and make me dance.” Y/N waved it away. She’d dealt with worse. 

Yenna smacked her on the side of the head. “Take this seriously, for once in your life, you stupid girl. He’s called the Guild. He knows all your hiding places. His family owns this stupid moon, runs this system. You need to leave.”

Y/N opened her mouth to argue but stopped when she heard the familiar and grating beep. A Trandoshan stood at the mouth of the alley, a small device in his hand with a tell-tale blinking, red light pointed right at her. “Well, they work fast.” Y/N shoved Yenna away from her and pulled a blaster from her thigh and fired at the bounty hunter. The Trandoshan leapt out of the way at the last moment and Y/N spared a look at Yenna. “Get out of here!” 

And then she was gone.

**

Working for the Hutts wasn’t exactly…ideal for the Mandalorian. But Greef had convinced him that the price on this certain bounty would be well worth it. He’d only been called in by the guild as a desperate final chance. Apparently, this bounty, only known (stupidly, in his mind) as “KK” had evaded or killed thirteen other bounty hunters and had jumped from planet to planet, system to system without too much trouble.

How she had managed to get into the Deep Core was a feat within itself and the Mandalorian found himself the least bit impressed with the target’s tenacity. Traveling into the Deep Core was dangerous for even the most experienced starship pilots and this “KK” had done it on a whim. His information told him that she was now on the city-planet of Empress Teta. Hiding out in the crowds would have been a smart move if anyone else was tracking her. But he never left without getting his bounty. 

He was surprised the client hadn’t given him the target’s actual name. Looking it up with the chain code was tedious—but referring to her as “KK” was grating on his nerves. The unflattering picture the puck supplied looked like it had been clipped from something else—a larger holo, maybe. Again, just another reason he didn’t like working for the Hutts. Everything they did was underdeveloped and lazy. 

As long as they paid, however, it would be fine. Right? 

He landed his ship at the dock and set out into the crowded streets. The tracking fob was beeping steadily, leading him through the throngs of people. 

If he could bring her in, he could have a day or two with his Foundling on that planet he had been sworn not to reveal the location of—it wasn’t a hard promise to keep. Keeping his Foundling safe always came first, in line with providing for his covert, his Tribe. This bounty could do that. 

Of course, his Tribe was under the impression that his Foundling had been returned to his own people and that he had basically washed his hands of the tiny green alien. It wasn’t part of the Code to continue to care for a Foundling once it was returned to its own people. 

But, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. And this bounty would be quite a boon. 

He followed the fob down into the underbelly of the city and into what seemed to be a fighting pit. Figures. His information had led him to believe that this “KK” was a bit of a regular at any and all fighting pits that a system could provide. So, it came as no surprise when his fob started to beep with a faster regularity as he drew closer to the din of a dark fighting pit, outfitted with a small cantina. His eyes swept the pit, watching the fight for a moment and deducing that the person he was looking for wasn’t participating. His fob beeped a little faster as he diverted toward the bar. 

He knew who he was looking for. A woman. The picture wasn’t flattering or the woman just wasn’t that attractive, he couldn’t really discern. Her cheek was swollen and an eye was puffy and sealed shut. Hair unkempt. She was a mess and she still smiled. 

He swept his eyes across the bar and it only took him a few seconds to set his sights on the lone woman at the bar. The hair color was right. He took a chance and sidled up to her, knowing his preferred blaster was just a few flicks of his fingers away from being un-holstered. 

She didn’t even look at him as he stood close to her. Just kept drinking her poison of choice even as his arm brushed hers. “Copaani mirshmure'cye, beroya?” 

The Mandalorian nearly startled—not because she threatened to smack him in the face, but because of the perfect pronunciation of the Mando’a. No one outside of Mandalore, even some prized translators, could replicate the tongue-twisting language like that. There went his plan to take the stupid piece of beskar right off her forehead when this was all over. Surely, it was hers. No one born off Mandalore could master the language like that—even he still sometimes sounded like an outsider despite his decades-long familiarity with the language. So, no, he wouldn’t take that strip of beskar from her. But he righted himself and set the puck on the bar and turned it on. The unflattering picture of her was illuminated in blue light. 

She winced as she looked at the holo and finished her drink. “That is a terrible picture.” 

That was true. She was much more beautiful in person. He would have to have a talk with Greef or the Client so they knew to provide accurate puck-pictures. This was not going at all the way he thought it would. And it continued to go down a path he was unfamiliar with when she flagged down the bartender and ordered, with a soft smile, two more pints of Mandallian Narcolethe. She handed over the credits and slid one over to him. He didn’t take it. “I can’t be bartered with.” 

“Oh, I know. But this is the only place I know of outside the Mandalorian system that managed to get this brew. I figured I could use one more before you haul me back.” Her e/c eyes connected with him over the rim of her glass as she took a sip. “And you are so impossibly rigid that I think you need a drink.” 

He looked at the drink, fingers drumming beside it on the sticky bar. “I don’t drink.” That wasn’t necessarily true. He just couldn’t drink with his helmet on. The last time he’d had Mandallian Narcolethe was the night before he swore the creed. One of his mentors had taken him and a few others to the nearest cantina and let all of the young men—far too young to actually drink legally—drink their fill of the dark alcohol. It was potent and bitter and called ship fuel by those who didn’t like it. But he had liked it. Far too much. 

She finished her pint in record time and then snatched the pint from in front of him and quickly emptied that, too. 

“Take it easy,” the bartender chided, no real heat to his words. It was obvious she’d been a regular. 

She waved him off with a fond smile of her own and then slid off her stool. “Well, let’s get this over with.” 

“Get what over with?” 

“I’m not gonna do this in a crowded bar. It’s too messy.” She turned and waved to the bartender who gave her a small smile and waved her on, as if to say ‘I’ll see you soon.’ “C’mon,” she said, turning toward him and then making her way to the door and out into the sticky, smoky night air. 

And he dutifully followed, strangely amused with the entire situation. She weaved through the crowd, not too far ahead that he thought she was going to run, and led him down a less crowded street and then into an alley. She turned and stopped, pressing her hip against the dirty side of a building. He almost swallowed his tongue. Why? He’d never know.  
“You know, I was wondering when they’d finally send a Mandalorian.” 

It didn’t warrant a response. But as she stepped into the dim, flickering light of the lone lamp in the alley, his eyes did immediately zero in on the strip of beskar at her hairline. There was a signet in the corner but he couldn’t quite make it out. But this made it difficult. 

There was the Creed to the Mandalorian and then the Creed to the Guild. And they were at odds with each other right now. 

And maybe he would have asked her where she got that beskar or if it belonged to her family, her clan, or tribe. Maybe he would have asked what she meant by ‘too messy.’ 

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. 

But he didn’t and couldn’t as he suddenly found himself three feet off the ground and pinned to the opposite wall of the alley. His limbs were spread out and immovable. Only his fingers could curl. Useless. 

KK chuckled and stepped up to him and started poking around his belt and pockets as she smiled up at him. There was no malice in the expression—but there was definite teasing. Her smile only widened when he jerked against her hold as her fingers dug a bit too deep. He barely noticed that she only used one hand, the other was shaking and fully extended at her side, as if it were just her hand that was holding him up. But he knew better. 

“I know what you are,” he managed to say. 

“Of course you do,” she said as she plucked the puck out of his belt and then pocketed it. “I’m sure you’ve seen quite a bit, Mando. And I’m sure we’ll see each other again.” She reached up and trailed a finger against the cuirass. “The beskar looks good. Do you shine it?” She laughed at her own joke and then raised her other hand, fingers flexed and still shaking. She winked and then curled her hand into a fist. 

The world went dark.

**

_“You’re too late. She isn’t on Jakku.”_

Y/N’s eyes shot open and she rolled to her side just in time for her stomach to empty itself, spilling against the hard flooring. How many times had she watched that man be gutted? How many times had she witnessed his wife clutch desperately at her throat, knowing it wouldn’t stop the blood from pouring? How many times had she heard that little girl scream for her parents who were never coming back? How many times had she seen that creature’s face smirk over the two dead bodies of the parents who were trying to protect their daughter?

And her body never altered its reaction. It was making her sick. 

The dreams had only increased in frequency since her run-in with the Mandalorian on Empress Teta almost two weeks ago. She had managed to jump ship and landed on Cantonica and swindled her way into the higher parts of society of the gleaming city of Canto Bight. It had always been easy for her to ‘convince’ people to help her, to believe they knew her, to give her things. Well, certain types of people—it didn’t work on everyone. The citizens of Canto Bight just seemed particularly susceptible. 

She apologized as the house-keeping droid that she affectionately called U2, short for U2-C1A, opened the door and started cleaning the mess. Funny. The closest thing she had to a friend on this stupid planet was a droid programmed to clean up her vomit. By ‘funny’ she obviously meant ‘pathetic.’ 

“Anything else, madam? May I fetch you some water?” 

“No, thank you, U2. Sorry about the mess,” she apologized again. 

“It is no trouble, madam. I am programmed to serve.” The droid excused itself and quietly shut the door as it left. 

Y/N flopped back onto her pillows and dragged a hand over her face. She knew she should at least try to get some sleep. She was supposed to meet with this high-rolling gambler tomorrow. She nearly had enough credits to get on a ship set for the Unknown Regions. Disappearing, truly, had been her goal. No one would be able to trace her out in the far reaches of the galaxy. She’d been running, dodging, fighting all her life. It was exhausting. She was exhausted. Maybe, when this was all over, she’d actually be able to sleep.

She sighed again. Then something seemed to poke at her brain. It didn’t take her long to realize what it was. Who it was. “Hello, Mando.” Y/N didn’t even see the point of lifting her head to see him emerge from the shadows. “I’m surprised they let you stay on the job after you had to ask for another tracking fob.”

“I didn’t.” 

That made her raise her head. She almost smiled at how he hadn’t exerted the minimal effort to point a blaster in her general direction. “What do you mean?” 

“You took the puck. Not the tracking fob.” He held up the blinking, beeping hunk of duraplast. It quickly went back into some compartment on his belt. 

“Oh.” She collapsed back. “I’ll remember that for next time.” Then, as she stared up at her ceiling, she had an idea. A terrible idea, she knew, with a very small chance of success, but an idea. Y/N stood and held out her wrists toward the Mandalorian with a smile. “I promise to not take your puck or tracking fob this time.” 

“What are you doing?” He asked, unmoving. 

“I’m letting you bring me in, obviously.” She paused and then shuffled over to her bedside table and retrieved her beskar headband and swiftly tied it around her head before also grabbing a bag filled with credits and lobbed it at the unmoving figure. “Hold that for me.” 

He didn’t even try to catch it and the bag bounced off his chest and fell to the floor. 

“How embarrassing it would have been if I let you drag me out of my room without putting on real clothes?” She asked, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer as she quickly threw on a pair of leggings under her slip of silk she had thrown on before trying to sleep. After putting on a pair of comfortable shoes, she then walked back over to the beskar-clad man and held out her wrists. “So? Ready to go?”

**

The Mandalorian knew she was looking around the ship, scrutinizing. Judging. It was an old ship, sure. But it stayed off the radar and served him well. He was strangely protective of it-

“You’ve taken good care of your ship, Mando,” she said, plopping down on the small seat behind the pilot’s chair, her handcuffs jingling just slightly. “You don’t see that many ships from before the Empire in this good of shape.” 

Oh. That hadn’t been what he was expecting. He looked away and then started firing up the ship, readying it for the trip. A flickering light on the console, blessedly, captures his attention: a waiting holo. 

A blue version of Greef Karga sprung to life. “Mando! Change of plans. The client has requested that you bring the bounty back to Nar Shaddaa instead of picking her up on Nevarro. I know you’ll have her by the time you get this. You can bring the rest of your bounties to me later. No rush.” The transmission ended. 

The woman leaned forward and unscrewed the bauble at the end of one of his controls with manacled hands and then sat back. She let the ball roll back and forth on her palm before it lifted away from her, bouncing slowly in the air. 

He watched it for a while, almost entranced, before he realized he was basically turned around in his chair and staring at her as she looked out the viewport, vaguely interested in the surroundings. He snatched the bauble back. “It’s not a toy.” 

“It looks like one,” she said, but didn’t grab for it again. 

He eventually had his trusty starship flying through the stars again without much more fanfare. The trip from the Corporate Sector to Hutt Space was long because the hyperspace ways between the two areas were convoluted and made the relatively short distance take longer to travel than going from Coruscant to Tatooine. 

Movement caught his eye and KK stood and stretched, rolling her head about her shoulders as her shackled hands rose and almost brushed the ceiling of the cockpit. “I’m gonna go take a nap.” She didn’t wait for him to say anything and slid down the small ladder and disappeared into the hull of his ship. 

He should follow her. He knew that. Experience told him that whenever a ‘loose’ bounty was wandering around his ship, they were looking for a weapon or a way to escape. Always. But he didn’t actually like putting everyone in carbonite. It was expensive to keep up with the system and the supplies needed for it. But, as he waited for the inevitable sound of a door opening or something falling to the ground, he grew more and more suspicious. Because he didn’t hear anything. And that was worse, wasn’t it?

He engaged autopilot and then swept down into his ship, ready to shove her into carbonite and be done with it. At least, that’s what he told himself.

But, as he stepped down into the main hull, he saw her curled into an uncomfortable corner, a small blanket wrapped around her torso. She was actually trying to nap. Strange. 

He kicked lightly at her foot, making her tired eyes open and look at him. 

“Get up.” 

She sighed but did as she was told and followed him back up to the cockpit. He slid the back of the small chair she had vacated down so it was one horizontal piece and then grabbed the blanket she’d balled into her arms and tossed it on the makeshift cot. 

“This will be better.” 

Her answering smile nearly left him gasping behind his helmet. “Thank you,” she said, as she curled into a ball and pulled the thin blanket up to her chin. 

It basically took all of his willpower to just turn back to the pilot’s chair and take a seat. 

This was getting ridiculous.

**

The ship rumbled.

It quickly woke Y/N from her short nap.

Y/N opened one eye and looked at the Mandalorian. He was quickly switching toggles and pushing flashing buttons. He was grumbling something under his breath and Y/N was sure it was all sorts of curses in several different languages. “Need help?” 

“No.” 

“It sounds like one of your generators is about to shut down.” 

“Be quiet.” 

“I can look at it, maybe fix it so we don’t blow up.” She finally opened both eyes. “Just a thought.” 

She watched him pause his furious button pushing and then slowly…ever so slowly, turned his chair to look at her. Just as the ship rumbled again. “Fine.” 

Y/N stood. “Great. You don’t even need to take these pretty little bracelets off.” Finding her way through the Razor Crest and toward the power generators sequestered away behind sheets of durasteel was easy. She moved them aside and pushed her way up and into the small opening by hauling herself up and then planting her feet against one of the carbonite slabs at her back. She pulled open the top of the generator and hummed at the sight of the fried wires. “When was the last time you rewired your generators?” She asked, knowing he had followed her down. “A while?” 

“Something like that.” 

She hummed, dangling legs kicking in the air like a child as she started pick and pull. “Could you please get me a spool of wire? I saw one somewhere, didn’t I? And a pair of cutters?” 

There was an answering set of footsteps and then something was pushed against her thigh. She imagined him with his arm outstretched, pushing the items toward her without getting too close. It made her chuckle. 

“Hands are busy. Throw it over my head.” 

The spool of wire landed in front of her with a ‘clang’ while the cutters were more gently (yet, awkwardly) slid under her stomach so she wouldn’t catch the blades in the back of the head. She quickly got to work, uncaring of how the sweat had started to slide down her nose and then drip onto the top of the generator, hissing and evaporating and making her eyes water. Blood was coating her fingers as she pulled the old wires and then had to strip the coating of the new. The handcuffs were starting to take on heat from the generator and sting her skin. 

But it was still largely…easy. She’d done it more times than she could count.

“How do you know how to do this?” She barely heard the quiet question.

“Oh, um, when I was a kid, this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Rybet woman taught me everything she knew about starships. How to make sure they stay running, how to make them stop running. Stuff like that.” She paused, remembering the few fond memories she had of that time in her life. “For a kid, it was a game. Everything’s a game.” Another drip of sweat nearly blurred her vision as it turned to steam. But she carried on and replaced the last wire and then pressed the top back on. She slithered backward out of the compartment and landed on her feet without much trouble. 

A small strip of fabric was thrust in her direction by glove-covered fingers and she took it with a quiet ‘thanks’ and wiped the sweat from her skin. 

“What is a mechanic doing in Hutt fighting pits?” 

Y/N laughed and shoved the piece of sweat-filled fabric into a pocket. “Not a mechanic. And fighting pits are easy money. Less time. More credits.” She shrugged. 

“You should be with your tribe. After the Purge-”

“I don’t have a tribe. Or a clan, Mando. And I’m well aware that Mandalorians are few in number.” She rolled her shoulders, not expecting a lecture from a bounty hunter. “Look, I fixed your ship and you’re taking me to the Hutts. Let’s not pretend to actually care about one another.” 

“I swore to The Creed that I would protect all-”

“I am not part of The Creed!” The words were wrenched from her throat before she could stop them. “I am not part of what you swore to protect. I am nothing to you but a bounty. Let’s keep it that way.” 

“You are blood of the Mandalore,” he argued, voice infuriatingly calm and garbled behind his helmet and modulator. “You belong with your people.” 

“I don’t have people. My parents left me in Hutt space the moment they thought I couldn’t control these stupid powers. Told me I was no Mandalorian, had no place at their table.” She only took a steadying breath when she noticed the slabs of durasteel she had moved were groaning, crumpling, and folding in on themselves. She hadn’t even noticed her hands curling to fists. It was in the past, she would tell herself. Can’t change it now. “Wer’cuy,” Y/N said, waving the outburst away. It doesn’t matter. 

“Why would your parents just…leave you?” 

“Not everyone had good parents, Mando. But, to their credit, they gave me a fighting chance; a handful of credits and a vibroknife. Didn’t check my pockets before flying away.” She wiped a hand over her face and blamed her loose tongue on the lack of rest. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t see him again after he dropped her off with Nashi. “I was born during the Great Purge. One misfortune follows another, or however that stupid saying goes. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Jedi and their war with Mandalore.” She took his silence as affirmation. “Very few Mandalorians became Jedi—only one is known to truly be both Jedi and Mandalorian—Tarre Vizsla with his Darksaber. Most others with those strange powers were cast out or taught to repress them. It happened so rarely on Mandalore that some even thought that those with Mandalore in their veins were immune to the sorcery.” She paused, memories flittering through her mind. “That wasn’t true, apparently.” Y/N looked at her quiet captor and companion. “I’ve never told anyone that.” 

“Thank you for telling me.” 

He said it so sincerely that Y/N felt the unfamiliar sting of tears stab at her eyes. She quickly blinked the sensation away. “Have you met a Jedi before?” She asked. That word had always been strange to her: Jedi. Her mother had spit it out like a curse but she’d heard whispers of the word, laced with esteem and gratitude. Is that what she was? A Jedi?

“Just once.” 

Y/N nodded and worried her lip with her teeth. “I haven’t felt his nervous since I was a child.” She grew quiet again. This was stupid. Revealing anything had been a mistake no matter how fleeting their association. All at once, she shook her adolescent emotions away and felt the familiar wash of apathy run over her. She had to focus on her half-baked plan, not some strange emotions conjured up by a bounty hunter. “Carbonite would have been preferable, you know. At least for your client’s sake. I should at least pretend to give them a fighting chance.” 

His helmet tilted to the side and she knew he was surveying her. Watching her. “Where’s the fun in that?” 

And, despite her soured mood, she smiled.

**

He found himself confused by his newest charge. She was Mandalorian by blood. Not by creed. That small strip of Beskar was her only hint of armor. She was so young and yet so cold except for bursts of angry heat.

The strange twisting of his stomach when he looked at her…he’d only felt it a precious few times in his strange, solitary life. Once in the Fighting Corps just before he placed his helmet over his head. He had loved how her hair had sparkled in the sun. Her name had been forgotten. Her face, lost behind a helmet just as his had been. Then there had been Omera on Sorgan. She had been kind and gentle and made his Foundling smile. But that had been short-lived, too, if it had ever lived at all. 

And now…this girl. 

And, she was a girl. She was almost half his age and she still had twisted his stomach. It sounded stupid, phrasing it like that. But that was all he could do to keep himself from blurting something stupid. Stupid like… “stay alive” or “beskar suits you” like some sort of lovesick boy. Not a battle hardened bounty hunter. 

It was ridiculous.

She was ridiculous.

He was ridiculous, too. 

“My name is Y/N, Mando,” she said, before she curled back up on the small cot. “You don’t have to refer to me as “KK” anymore. I know you hate it.” And then she was basically dead to the stars, snoring softly with her legs hanging over the edge of the cot, uncovered by the blanket. 

His mind briefly conjured the picture of his Foundling softly sleeping in that very spot, tucked away in his pram. Now he’d had two Force users on his small ship. Very different, he knew, but also very similar. 

He caught himself looking over his shoulder at her every hour or so, making sure she hadn’t disappeared. But no, she was still right there, sleeping. He hadn’t realized how tired she must have been. Never gave it much thought before, the amount of sleep a bounty was getting before he shoved them onto the Razor Crest. But he found himself worrying about her. He knew the toll using the Force took on his Foundling, was it the same for her? It had to have been—she’d been asleep for almost the entire journey. Barely moved from the loosely curled position she’d taken up as soon as she hit the cot. 

As soon as the landing gear hit the crumbling tarmac outside of the Hutt’s palace on Nar Shaddaa, he looked at the little bauble on one of his controls. 

“This isn’t the same,” he grumbled to himself. 

The Mandalorian stood and walked over to his slumbering passenger and watched her—just watched her breathe for a moment. It would be the last time he saw her, there was no harm in appreciating a view, right? But, eventually, he reached out and poked at her shoulder with a single finger. 

He was promptly flung back across the cockpit and landed on his control panel with an undignified, “oof.” He then slumped to the floor and thanked the stars that the beskar absorbed most of the impact. 

“Sorry,” came a soft, sleepy voice. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me.” She stood and stretched and offered a hand to him to help him up which he didn’t take. 

“Let’s go,” he said, grabbing the thin strip of durasteel between the manacles and hauling her out of the ship. The pair was quiet as he led her out of the ship and onto the tarmac and stopped a few feet short of Nashi, the Hutt who had put out the bounty on Y/N. A handful of servants and guards were surrounding him. 

_“Ah, I knew I could trust the Mandalorian,”_ Nashi said in Huttese. His bug-like eyes roved over him and Y/N. _“You were not an easy catch, KK. I’ll take great pleasure in breaking you.”_ Nashi then turned to a servant girl, and muttered something. 

In response, the servant girl, with her head basically tucked to her chest, walked forward and held out a tray filled to the brim with truguts, the Huttese form of currency. A hefty bounty indeed. He accepted it and shoved the piles of truguts into a bag before he let the servant girl even touch Y/N’s handcuffs. As the servant girl started to (slowly) pull her toward Nashi, Y/N turned and winked at him. “See you around, Mando.” 

He wasn’t sure if that was true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So? where do you think this story is going? Any scenes you think will appear in the story? All my love to you for reading. xx


	3. The Scrapper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kudos and comments. It means the world to me. Parts of this chapter are inspired by the Jedi: Fallen Order video game. As always, please tell me what you think. xx

“Did you hear what happened on Nar Shaddaa?” He heard another bounty hunter say. 

“Yeah! Took out half the palace. I wish I could’ve been there to see it. I kriffing hate the Hutts. They always tried to stiff me out of the price they put up.” 

There was more laughter and more talk about the destruction of the palace on the moon. Everyone seemed to be reveling in it but were all confused as to what caused it. “A thermal detonator couldn’t do that—hell, twenty of ‘em couldn’t do that! Must’ve been something big!” 

“But there was no fire. It isn’t like there was an AT-AT just hiding in the palace.” 

The Mandalorian turned away from the conversation and tried to focus all of his attention on the empty chair in front of him. Greef was late. Again. He had collected several more bounties since dropping Y/N off on Nar Shaddaa and was ready to cash in. 

It should be over now. She wasn’t his charge or bounty or anything anymore. 

But was that her plan? To literally blow up her captor? It was obvious she had no weapons on her person when he’d taken her aboard the Razor Crest. What had she done? 

Or was it her at all? 

He knew it was useless to keep thinking about it, about her, but even as Greef congratulated him on the completion of all of his bounties and joked about how everyone “still hates you,” all he could think about was Y/N.

**

If Y/N was being honest, she hadn’t really meant to blow up the palace. At least…not that much. It was an accident, really. But then Nashi had really put her in a metal bikini and made her dance. He let his ‘visitors’ touch her: pull at the thin straps holding up her sad excuse of a skirt, trail their fingers and various other appendages across her exposed skin.

It had lasted all of a handful of weeks. She had managed to scope out where Nashi’s guards hid the keys for the chain around her neck. She knew where the cache of blasters was kept. She was just biding her time. And then Nashi had the brilliant idea of trying to settle a debt with someone by using her as collateral. “ _She is a feisty one. I give you permission to try to break her._ ” And then she had been all but dragged to one of the tacky rooms off the main “throne room” and told to wait. 

Anger had been a constant friend. Always there, always waiting. Just simmering beneath the surface. But Y/N had learned to tamp it down and let it fester in her gut. It was never productive or pretty when she let it bubble and lurch. 

But she wasn’t ever going to let herself become some warm sleeve to be leant out at Nashi’s whim. 

It had started as a bite of ice in her chest that quickly bloomed to something red-hot. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. She’d felt it before and knew that she couldn’t ever control it once passed a certain point. For almost all of her life she had been dragging herself back, away from that point, just for the sake of keeping her head down and out of the spotlight. But not now. 

She curled into herself as she felt the heat surge through her veins, it was the only way she could stay mostly upright. It was coming, pushing and spilling over with an intensity of a dammed river finally breaking free after decades or dormancy. Something was sparking at her fingertips and trailing up her arms and arcing across her chest. 

The door hissed open and that is when she finally, finally, finally let it go. 

And when the dust settled, Y/N didn’t care about the bodies she stepped over on the way to the blaster cache or the pools of blood she felt soaking the ends of her skirt as she emptied the contents of Nashi’s credit hoard into a bag she’d pilfered from the wreckage. She called it luck when she found her strip of beskar amongst the piles of credits. There was a certain detachment that always came with that terrible display power (is that what that was? Power?). That was why she always kept to small spurts, helping her win fights quickly, or evade bounty hunters in dark alleys. Those left her still feeling…normal. As normal as she could be, anyway. 

This always felt different. 

The only emotion she felt was an odd sense of satisfaction as she saw the end of Nashi’s tail sticking out from under a large pile of rubble.

But it didn’t matter. Not now. Not anymore. Y/N slipped through a back door and into a buzzing bazaar. Everyone was too busy looking up, at the still-settling wreckage of the palace, to notice the girl in the metal bikini slipping through the gawkers with a bag of blasters and credits.

**

The Mandalorian thought he saw her once.

It had been about three Standard months since he dropped her off on Nar Shaddaa and he still couldn’t stop thinking about her and her soft smile. Again, he knew it was ridiculous. But did that stop him? No. 

And there he was, dragging a half-mangled body across the crowded, pulsing streets of Zeltros, a planet known for its unstopping and uncontrollable festivities in the Inner-Rim. It was filled with opulence and hedonism of every kind—there had been a rumor that it had never been overtaken by the Empire because the natives, the planet itself, emitted a pheromone that made almost everyone instantly abandon all of their logic and strive to only achieve pleasure. And while the helmet he wore filtered out gasses and smoke and most air-based pheromones, he must have inhaled something because as he dragged the unmoving quarry, he turned his head and saw her. She was standing on a balcony above the crowds, draped in black silk that made her look menacing and decadent all at once. She was sipping on something bubbly in a jewel encrusted glass when she caught his eye. 

And then she winked. Right at him. 

His quarry groaned and grabbed his attention for a moment—and when he looked up again, she was gone. 

It had to have been some sort of hallucination. It had to have been—so, he pushed it away and continued on to the Razor Crest and tried to forget about it. About her…again. It almost worked, and he didn’t really think about it when he arrived back on Nevarro and collected his pay for this quarry and the five others he had in cold, grey slabs in the back of his ship, nor did he think about it when he slipped away and dropped off part of his earnings with the remnants of his Tribe. 

It was only when he was holding his Foundling in his arms, watching the other padawans (was that the right word? It sounded stupid.) train, did he think of her again. The little green alien in his hold cooed and tilted his head as if he could read his mind. A tiny hand pressed against the chin of his helmet. 

“It’s fine,” the Mandalorian said.

The answering babble wasn’t convinced and his little hand moved to slap across the visor of the helmet, blocking his sight for a moment. 

“Stop it.” There was no real heat to his words, as he pulled his Foundling’s arm down and tucked him a little tighter against his chest.

“He’s very strong,” a familiar voice said, grabbing his attention. Luke Skywalker was walking up to him, relaxed and smiling. “You should be very proud.” 

The Mandalorian only nodded. 

“I know only a little about his species from my old master, but I think he is old enough to start truly participating in our training. With your permission, of course.” 

“He’s a baby.” 

“Older than you or me,” Luke corrected, a glint in his eye. “From what I can tell, they age very rapidly after hitting their first century. It would be good for him to get a handle on his abilities before then. But I will not do anything you don’t agree with. You brought your son here for protection, I won’t endanger that.” 

The Mandalorian sighed and looked at his Foundling who only smiled up at him. It was true. Luke had refrained from truly trying to train him because the Mandalorian thought he was too young. But he could tell this little womp rat had wanted to participate, wanted to learn. “If he stays safe, I see no problem with it.” 

Luke nodded. “All of my padawans’ safety is my first priority.” 

The Mandalorian’s sigh was quiet. “Good. Will my visiting him interfere-”

“Of course not. I learned from the mistakes of the Old Order. I encourage the families of my padawans to visit whenever they can.” But he paused. “Unfortunately, most don’t have families.” 

“Why not?” 

Luke shrugged. “The Force works in mysterious and sometimes cruel ways. I hoped to give them some sort of family here.” They both looked out at the small group, practicing the strange powers they all seemed to be endowed with. 

Ben, the little princely kid, was away from the group, frowning at something. He seemed to feel the Mandalorian’s gaze on him and his dark eyes looked toward him and a small, nervous smile touched his lips as he gave an awkward wave. The Mandalorian nodded in response. 

“My nephew is very fond of your son. I think it’s good for both of them. Having someone…it makes things easier.” 

There was a slight rumbling of the ground, like a small explosion. The Mandalorian was almost impressed with the put-upon look the Jedi let color his features as smoke started to fill the air over the crest of a far-off hill. 

“Master Luke!” A young twi’lek boy yelled running up the hill toward him. “Master Luke!” 

Luke sighed. “Excuse me.” He quickly walked down toward the group of padawans. “What is it? Did one of you accidentally,” the emphasis on the word was definitely warmly sarcastic, “do something again?” 

As the Jedi Master walked away, the Mandalorian looked down at his Foundling again. “You’re going to start fires like them, aren’t you?” 

The Child laughed.

Being rich was boring. 

Y/N liked having money, sure, but it was more than what she could ever actually spend (and she had tried) and it had pushed her into a strange new way of living where she didn’t have to fight for food and it was now deemed ‘inappropriate’ for someone of her ‘social standing’ to participate in the fighting pits. She just needed to relieve some stress. She’d been bouncing from system to system since her bit of destruction on Nar Shaddaa. The amount of wealth she had carried (transferring Hutt trugets to New Republic credits hadn’t been as hard as she had anticipated and she only just founnd a better way to carry her credits other than a big bag) made people just assume she was important and she didn’t correct them. What was she going to say? ‘No, I actually stole this. I’m supposed to be incognito.’ Dumb. So, she draped herself in fine clothes, stayed in luxury hotels, traveled in shining, new starships, and let high class people think she was one of them. 

It had been fun for exactly two standard weeks. 

The most exciting thing that had happened after that was seeing her Mandalorian when she’d traveled to Zeltros to see if the pheromone-filled planet could ease some of the tension she was holding like a thermal detonator in her stomach. It didn’t work, for some reason. But she did see a mangled man being dragged through the streets by a familiar beskar-clad bounty hunter. And the Stars smiled at her for just a moment and he looked up at her. 

She wasn’t entirely sure what she was thinking when she winked. But she did anyway and then hid her embarrassment behind her flute of champagne before letting herself be called away by someone else, hiding in the shadows of the villa. 

That had been it, really. One fleeting glance. 

And that night had been the only night she hadn’t dreamed of the little girl and her dying parents. 

But then she settled back into the routine of lavish stupidity during daylight hours and terrible nightmares at night. Fun.

But now, instead of just showing the slaughter of two thirds of a family, her dreams also gave her a glimpse of a young boy screaming into his pillow, pleading for the voices to “stop, stop please. Stop talking to me. I don’t want to listen anymore.” It broke her heart. He would tug at his too-big ears and cry until his pillow was soaked, huddled under a thin blanket, trying so desperately to be quiet. 

So…now she had two kids in her head. Fantastic. 

Copious amount of alcohol didn’t help. She even tried spice, hoping the mind-altering drug would shut off the dreams at least for a single night. It only made them worse. But what was she supposed to do? She didn’t know these kids’ names. Didn’t know where they were. Or if they even existed. And now she had all this free time on her hands which only made her mind wander again and again to the kids she kept seeing. 

After a few more weeks of doing absolutely nothing and hating herself even more than normal, Y/N eventually found herself on Bracca, a poor Mid-Rim planet that functioned basically as a giant scrap yard for decommissioned starships. The useable parts were taken and repurposed and the rest were fed to the every-hungry sarlacc at the bottom of the pit. She joined the Scrapper’s Guild and spent her time ripping apart old starships for a few credits each day—which she promptly gave away to the children who were begging near the transports trains. She didn’t need it and it allowed her to pretend she was actually doing something. 

When she was curled on her tiny, tiny cot and listening to the night crew dismantle ships over the ridge, her dreams were kinder. The little girl was pretending to be a pilot and teaching herself Teedospeak and learning how to carefully pull apart starships to sell. The boy was practicing the archaic art of calligraphy and staring out into a swathe of stars she didn’t recognize and smiling. There was a matching melancholy about both of them despite their small smiles. While she definitely preferred these dreams to the others, she would wake up sad and chilled, as if she were feeling their emotions as her own. Or maybe it was her own loneliness manifesting itself into two recurring characters in her dreams as a convoluted way of trying to get her to feel something. 

Y/N wiped her brow free of sweat, knocking her helmet askew, as she carefully tried to free a particularly large fuse from a busted durasteel coupling. The rest of the morning crew were buzzing around her in their own tasks as the foreman droid flew above them, monitoring their progress. Y/N seemed to be the only one with patience enough to dig the ‘stuck’ parts out of the ships and usually had that task assigned to her. She was fine with it. Didn’t mind. It usually meant fewer credits at the end of the day but it kept her crew from asking too many questions. The strip of beskar she wore loose around her neck only gained her a few odd looks but most kept to themselves and stayed out of each other’s way. 

The coupling gave and she finally pulled the fuse free, throwing it into the small bag she had tied to her waist, hearing it clunk against the handful of other fuses she had freed earlier in the morning. The foreman droid flew to her side and then told her to handle a stuck a compressor on a decommissioned TIE Fighter where half of the crew was currently working. Y/N nodded and made her way across a few remnants of other starships, jumping over the gaps between them. The death-defying drops she would fly over were nothing. She knew she wouldn’t fall and it always took too long for her to walk around to actually get from one end to the other. The wind always cooled her down a bit, too. But, as she leapt from the remnants of a Minstrel-class space yacht and onto the busted front-end of a U-Wing, the durasteel groaned under her sudden weight and then collapsed. Y/N scrambled to grab a batch of loose wiring. Her shoulder popped as the wiring held her weight and she was left to dangle over the pit. The sarlacc’s giant mouth was open, waiting for its next meal of durasteel scrap. 

There was a commotion above, other scrappers scrambling to get her up to safety. But they were arguing as to how—“the ship will break” “You can’t just walk out there” “send the droid!”

Y/N rolled her eyes at all of it and tightened her grip on the wiring before swinging her legs back and forth, gaining enough momentum to swing over and grab a low-hanging loop of duraplast. She hauled herself up onto the backend of another starship and then took a moment to rub at her shoulder, knowing it was probably dislocated. She’d dealt with worse. Waving off the concerned grouping of scrappers and placating the foreman droid, Y/N took a moment to gather her wits. That had been the closest she’d come to death in a handful of weeks and it rattled her a bit—not as much as it used to, but still rattled. She drank a few pulls from her canteen and closed her eyes, trying to focus on the din of the operations to steady her hard-thumping heart. 

But something else caught her attention. Not a noise. Not something physical grabbing her sight. It was something else. Something she knew intrinsically and yet never could name. This wasn’t just her ‘abilities’ recognizing someone she knew. This was a chill, like icy fingers trailing across her brain and leaving her stomach rolling. These feelings, however few and far between they were, always meant something bad was going to happen or she would meet someone awful. The last time she’d felt this, she encountered a Heptooinian on Nar Shaddaa who held out his hand and choked the air from her lungs all without touching her before stealing her handful of credits. 

She opened her eyes and turned to left and saw someone sprinting across the top of one of the trains, uncaring of how the rickety thing moved. They were obviously fleeing something…

Oh. There it was. The Mandalorian was calmly following on top of the train, a few cars back, with his cape billowing in the wind. 

She laughed and stood, watching the chase with mild amusement. Her fingers wrapped around her arm and she yanked, pushing her shoulder back into place with a hiss.

The bounty was still running and the Mandalorian was still chasing him, even as he jumped from the train and tucked and rolled before continuing to sprint. 

And, as always, the Mandalorian followed. 

They were nearing a pile of collected durasteel, all sharp edges and biting lines. The starship that had been scheduled to pick it up to be repurposed had been delayed with a bad hyperdrive and the pile hadn’t moved in weeks, only growing larger and more sharp with each passing day. Unease twisted her stomach as she watched them and undid her small bag and let it fall with a muted ‘clang.’ Someone else could pick it up and trade it in for credits. Her stupid Mandalorian was about to hurt himself. 

As if on cue, right as she started once again leaping over the waiting-ships to get closer, the quarry turned and thrust out his arm and the armored man froze. A barrage of curses left her mouth as she watched the Mandalorian be thrown about like a doll in the hands of a toddler with a tantrum. His beskar emitted a terrible sound with each impact; against the ground, against the hull of a starship, the train just as it docked to let out the afternoon crew, and then…the pile of twisted durasteel. Y/N held out her hand, trying to keep him from falling but wasn’t quick enough. The pile engulfed him entirely and the quarry turned and ran as Y/N made the final leap onto the strip of mud just beside the pile the Mandalorian had disappeared in. “Mando?” She called out, peering into the pile as if it would suddenly melt away. “You dead?” It shook and groaned before the Mandalorian clawed his way up and then collapsed against the jagged edge of a TIE Fighter’s former wing. 

“Where is he?” 

She took that as a signal he was fine and then set off toward the other man, hopping over debris and scrap with a practiced ease as he was slowed. An obvious injury to his side had impaired his movement and Y/N felt herself smirking as she was closing the distance between them.

But then he turned and horrible, angry eyes glared down at her. They weren’t an unnatural color—not the red-ringed yellow she’d read about in some near-ancient holos she’d pilfered on one of the many planets she’d gallivanted across. But they held no warmth, no soul, and the chill she felt nearly rocked her to her bones. She watched his fingers twitch at his side. It was then she noticed the tattered Empire emblem on his shoulder. The remnants of a lightsaber were still buckled to his belt, red kyber glinting in the cloudy sunlight. She knew what and who he was: an inquisitor. Living in the seedy world of Nar Shaddaa had left her in the strange position to hear all sorts of information that the average laymen would not be privy to. The fact that a program like Inquisitorius, a group of Force users sent out into the galaxy to exterminate other Force users by any means necessary, existed had chilled her to her bones when she was younger and made her think that someone was always tracking her. While she had grown out of that fear, seeing one face-to-face now had let a bit of that childhood dread bubble to the surface.

Y/N pushed out her hand with a yell, heart hammering behind her ribs, and hoped she wouldn’t crush him. The man let out a yell as she felt her hold encase him before she ripped him back. The toes of his boots dragged in the dirt, creating two uneven trenches, before she dropped him at the Mandalorian’s feet. 

The Mandalorian looked a little unsteady as he leaned against the pile of scrap he’d just dragged himself out of so she kept a bit of a hold on the Inquisitor—just in case. 

“You’re alive.” Even behind the voice modulator, he sounded surprised.

Y/N laughed despite the man struggling against her invisible grip with all his might. “Told you I’d see you again, Mando.” 

“The palace blew up.”

“Is now the appropriate time for these questions?” The man broke her hold and ran only for Y/N to knock him off his feet with a loose engine aimed at his legs. He howled in pain as she set it on his chest, pinning him. She made sure to not let it completely settle over him, holding it high enough just to keep him secure. “We can swap stories later. Shoot him…or something.”

The Mandalorian was then flung back and smacked against the unmoving train and the engine rumbled, pushing against her hold. That familiar cold crept back and pressed into her mind. “You feel it!” The man cried. “I know you do! Give in. Let it wash over y-”

The words promptly stopped as Y/N dropped her hold on the engine completely, letting its entire weight press the former Inquisitor into the dirt and rubble. She ignored the crackling of his bones and then reached out and pushed—just enough. 

The cold receded and Y/N sucked in a breath before walking over to the Mandalorian who was just getting to his feet. “You good?” 

“Did you kill him?” 

Y/N rolled her eyes but still reached out and steadied him when he swayed for a moment. “He’s just unconscious. Did the same thing to you on Empress Teta. Relax.” 

A sigh rumbled from behind his helmet. He walked over to his bounty looked him over. “Are you sure you didn’t kill him?” 

“Mostly sure.” 

He rolled the engine off the other man and paused. “He’s still breathing.” 

“Great. You can carry him since you’re feeling fine.” She walked to the armored man’s side. “Where’s your ship?”

**

This was so stupid.

Y/N helped him shove the bounty into the carbonite contraption and then smirked as the machine hissed and groaned…before suddenly stopping. 

“Does this happen often?” She asked, leaning against the only-partially frozen slab of carbonite. “Mechanical issues?” The teasing lilt of her voice had him sighing. 

“No.” 

“Looks like it.” 

“It’s fine.” He quickly started to walk away from her, hoping everything was fine. “You need to leave.” 

“Not a chance, Mando,” she replied, following on his heels. “How many times did you almost die this morning? Two? Or was it three? You need me.” 

He grabbed the ladder leading to the cockpit but turned to her, almost surprised she was basically climbing his back with how close she was standing. “No. I’ll close the hatch on your way out.” 

“Nope.” She popped the ‘p’ and smiled. “Just let me help you with this.” The girl paused. “Also, you’re bleeding all over your ship. I’m almost surprised you’re still upright.” 

He looked down and, sure enough, there were droplets of blood, getting exceedingly larger all across the floor of the Razor Crest. “Oh.” 

“Yeah, ‘oh,’ you big rancor. Stars, did you snort some spice before taking this bounty? C’mon. I’ll patch you up.” 

And, for some reason, he actually let her wrangle him onto one of the pull-down seats near the slabs of carbonite of his other bounties as she pulled a medipac from stars-knows-where. Did he even have one of those? She looked very much in control in the moment, and so beautiful—even if she still had that stupid scrapper helmet on her head all cockeyed. And all he could think to say was, “I don’t do spice.”

Y/N snorted as she rifled through the pac. “Didn’t actually mean to insinuate you did, bucket-head. Just a joke.” She stood with her strong legs on either side of his and held up a handful of bacta patches in her hands. “Take off your armor.” 

“No.” 

Y/N shut her eyes and pushed out a long-suffering breath before righting her posture, one of her knees knocking into his. “Look, I know about the helmet. I know your clan is one of those that think you are more protected by keeping their faces hidden even though there are plenty of other clans and Mandalorians who show their face after swearing to The Creed-”

He was going to argue, really, he was. 

But she steamrolled right over that. “-but I get it. Keep your helmet on. I don’t need or want to see your face. But you are going to bleed out if I don’t look at your back.”  
Silence stretched between them again. 

And she had to break that, too. “You know, I can take whatever I want. But I’d prefer if you went along with this.” 

The man behind the mask looked at her, really looked at her then. Could feel that strange power she and his Foundling had basically crackling under her skin. Or maybe he was projecting. The dim lighting overhead was making her sweat-slicked skin sparkle. He hated it. Hated how beautiful she was, making his stomach tie up in knots. Maybe he could blame the blood loss. But he reached up and undid his cape and then the buckle for the back plate and carefully, minding the burn that seemed to zing up his spine (maybe he was actually more injured than he had anticipated) at the motion, and set it aside before standing and turning to give her his back. 

Her long exhale was warm against him, even through the fabric of his tunic. “Stars, Mando. We’re going to need more bacta.” 

“I have a Field cauterizer in the cock pit.” 

She tsked. “Let’s not add any scars.” The woman was warm at his back but he could feel her hesitation. Along with the blood that had apparently soaked his tunic. “I’m going to lift your shirt. I’ll be as quick as I can.” 

“I understand,” he responded, voice strangely quiet even behind the modulator. 

His tunic was lifted and something cold was wiped across his skin. He gritted his teeth but didn’t move. The strange, cooling bite of the first bacta patch almost had him recoiling. 

“Sorry,” she murmured, voice soft. “I know it stings.” 

He didn’t answer.

She applied the next handful of patches in quick succession. Each time, her fingers sliding across his skin would make something lodge in his throat and his breath would come out in a slow drag, nearly fogging the visor of his helmet. Her fingers were soft but he could tell she had rough hands, not that he minded. His hands were rough, too. Would she like his-

Y/N tugged down his tunic and stepped back before grabbing his back plate and cape. Deft hands reattached both without saying a word. “Are you hurt anywhere else? You got thrown around a lot.” 

“I’m fine,” the Mandalorian grumbled, quickly walking back toward the ladder into the cockpit. “Thank you. For your help.” He hauled himself up on the ladder and bit back a groan. Apparently, he wasn’t fine. “You should get back to work.” 

Y/N laughed. “Do you actually think I can just go back to being a scrapper after that? They’re a quiet bunch but they really don’t take kindly to people like me. Apparently, there was some big scuffle during the rule of the Empire and it left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths.” She waved a hand and he heard the ramp close. “So, I think I might just tag along.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions, comments, concerns?? Leave me a comment--I try to reply quickly! xx


	4. The Back-Up Bounty Hunter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I'm sorry this chapter took so long. I've been going though some stuff and I've had trouble processing everything.  
> Is anyone still reading this? Please let me know.

It took Y/N exactly thirteen standard hours to ask him: “So, who hired you to track down the Inquisitor?” 

She had helped herself to his ‘fresher and came out in a cloud of steam and smelling of his soap and wearing one of his tunics that he didn’t see her steal and a pair of soft, tight trousers she must have been wearing under her scrapper gear. Draping herself over the seat she had slept on the last time she’d been on the Razor Crest. She was filled with easy smiles and knowing looks that made him want to throw her in carbonite if the kriffing thing functioned like it was supposed to. She looked too…he didn’t even have a word for it. 

“Wait, wait. Let me guess—some Outer Rim third-removed royalty wanted him for a collection.” She curled her feet under her and smiled at him again—that smile that made his stomach hurt. “Tell me I’m right.” 

“You’re wrong.” 

Y/N laughed. “Even better.” 

“It was a senator from the New Republic.” Leia Organa had been adamant that he handle it—paid three times the Guild rate upfront when she called him to Chandrilla and promised more when he delivered the bounty. Admittedly, it would have been better if she had mentioned the small fact that the bounty could move things with his mind before she tasked him with this. But Organa, as he learned, kept everything very close to the chest. She was prickly yet affable—approachable yet terrifying. 

Much like his strange traveling companion.

Not that he would ever tell her that. 

The Inquisitor was frozen enough that he seemed to be out of commission until he was taken out of the carbonite. It was a small blessing and he hoped the machine would function enough for when he brought in his next bounty. They were nearly there; the planet Sibensko was just a half dozen klicks away and he knew where to land—the planet was largely covered with water and only a handful of islands that had enough land for him to be able to safely land the Crest. He’d travelled here before, it would be no trouble. The bounty, a Baragwin gangster, had settled on Sibensko and ingratiated himself with the local arm of some cartel but he doubted they would be a problem. Most were based in underwater cities and bunkers while his quarry preferred the sandy beaches of the tiny islands. 

And it was taking every fiber of his strength to focus on that and not on how he could smell his scent on her. 

“I’m sensing a story there.” She leaned forward just a bit, still comfortable in the chair he knew to be the worst. She’s comfortable in his ship. 

“There isn’t one.” 

“Sure.” She laughed again. But she didn’t push for more answers and busied herself with fixing a batch of fried wires near her shoulder. Where she had found the spool of wire to replace them, he’ll never know and he was too embarrassed to ask. When the lights on the left half of his control panel actually started to work, he let himself smile behind his helmet. He continued to pilot as she eventually took a nap—the position she curled herself into looked like something out of a contortionist holo and he wondered how she was relaxed at all. But her face was never twisted or pulled in a grimace. No. She actually looked at peace. 

Odd. Just like her. 

Dropping out of hyperspace didn’t even wake her but his landing did. Her eyes were bleary for just a moment before she rolled her spine like a lothcat and stood as he walked past and then slid down the short ladder. He holstered one of his (many) blasters and doubled checked that his vibroblade was still in its sheath as he heard her climb down the ladder.

He knew what she was about to ask. 

“Stay here.” He even pointed a finger at her. “I’ll be back in—”

“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest, rumpling the fabric of his tunic. “I’m going with you. No matter how much bacta I slapped on your back, it isn’t going to completely heal you in that little of time.” She paused. “I’ll be back-up, won’t even know I’m there unless they actually look like they’re about to kill you.” 

“Everyone wants to kill me.” Being a bounty hunter didn’t exactly endear him to anyone—except for her, it seemed. 

“True, but not everyone has the ability to do so.” Y/N hooked a thumb over her shoulder toward the carbonite slabs. “You’ve proven that—just like I’ve proven that I’m useful.”

“No.”

“I swear to the stars that I will rewire your entire ship by the time you come back if you don’t take me with you.” 

He might have taken her threat seriously if she hadn’t started fighting a laugh halfway through. And maybe he would have just told her to stay put again if Y/N hadn’t wrapped her hands around his upper arm and squeezed, maneuvering around his beskar pauldron. And maybe he could have ignored that if she hadn’t quietly said, “please.” 

And that was it for him. Her soft touch had ripped his resolve to shreds in an instant. And when she pulled her hands away, leaving some strange cold bite in her wake, he was sure he’d never really be able to say no to her and have it stick. “Fine. But you stay out of it unless I-”

“-am on the verge of death, but even then, wait a bit. For your ego’s sake.” 

He sighed. 

The tiny island they landed on was only a few klicks wide but he’d managed to still hide the Crest in the strange forest on the outskirts of the little outpost he knew his quarry frequented. The Baragwin was fond of the cantina, if his information served him correctly. And while it was nearing the middle of the night, the sun was still only starting to set. The bazaar was still bustling with life, people selling food and trinkets. His appearance quickly gained attention, as it always did, but he paid it no mind. And Y/N didn’t seem to either and smiled at one of the locals as she stopped at a stall and trailed her fingers against some shining, glittering thing he didn’t care enough to identify. He paused and watched her though, watching the small smile she let play on her lips as she spoke to the vendor and listened to the laugh she let out when the vendor said something. 

Y/N caught him looking and waved him forward with a crook of her fingers. Silently telling him to move on ahead, she’d be waiting. 

He nodded and turned away and only looked back at her again at the last moment, watching her smile without a care, and then slipped into the cantina. 

The bounty had very little fight in him. A few drinks were thrown and patrons hollered but not much else. Cuffs were placed over his meaty wrists and he dragged the oversized lizard back out onto the sand. A quick, cursory glance made him aware that Y/N was nowhere to be seen. He sighed and continued to shove the Baragwin forward, toward the tree-line. 

Just as the shadows of the leaves and branches touched his feet, the heaving prisoner actually started to fight back. It didn’t last long; a quick shot to his leg and then cuffs on his ankles quickly subdued him. 

“Are all your quarries this lame?” 

Perhaps he shouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see her perched on a low-hanging branch just behind him, looking a little bored. “Sometimes.” 

The Baragwin at his feet struggled against his bonds and let out a string of expletives, insulted that they both thought so little of him. 

Unbothered, Y/N tilted her face toward the small stream of sunlight that filtered through the tree’s leaves and let it warm her face. He watched for a moment, content to just look at her for some reason. Again. 

“I’m not going to carry him back to the ship for you,” Y/N said without opening her eyes.

He only sighed.

And when the Baragwin laughed, the toe of his boot might have just found one of his fingers with a little extra weight. The laughter quickly stopped.

**

They picked up two more bounties after that. (Thankfully, the fritzing carbonite bath had worked for each of them. It would have been a drag to have to supervise a quarry when she was trying to crack jokes with her Mandalorian—it had worked exactly one time. And she only received a soft chuckle. It was a win in her book.) She had been impressed that her Mandalorian had managed to con the Guild into giving him so many pucks. Or maybe they were just so sure he would deliver.

And deliver he did. 

It had been fun to watch him work. He was always so controlled, so in control. Not that it was a surprise—she had seen him work before. And Y/N knew she’d never tire of it. But she wondered if he would. Bounty Hunting wasn’t exactly the most sustainable of professions. The Great Purge often had the survivors doing the galaxy’s dirty work for a few spare credits and her Mandalorian was no different it would seem. From her handful of days beside him, it was easy to decipher that he belonged to a stricter sect of the Creed. Never removed his helmet around her, kept his name to himself, along with almost all the other identifiable information—but she had suspected this when she was still in cuffs herself, it was something else to see it day-in and day-out. Her parents, before dropping her in Hutt Space, had encountered a few of his kind. Fanatics, they called them. (That was ironic coming from them—the people who pushed their own daughter out because she had abilities. Sure. _Fanatics._ ) Her clan had been free to remove their helmets whenever they saw fit. 

But who was she to judge him? He had been almost nothing but kind to her and she liked his company. Liked him. Even if she’s never seen his face or heard his un-modulated voice. She wasn’t going to pass any sort of judgment on him. The Creed was important to him and she could never be selfish enough to ask for him to bend or break it for her, his one-time bounty. 

“Back to Nevarro after this one, right?” 

“Then Chandrilla.”

“For the Inquisitor, right, right,” she said, elbow-deep in another generator’s wiring nest. It had started smoking a few moments ago but she managed to keep it from exploding. (The generator she’d saved all those months ago was still functioning perfectly, thank you very much.) She really should just rewire his entire ship. It was a walking death trap. But maybe she felt like she was doing something useful by fixing things, little by little. If she did it all at once he wouldn’t have a reason for keeping her on the ship. It wasn’t like she was all that necessary on his bounty hunting. While she could definitely provide back up, he very, very rarely needed it. 

So, she’d endanger herself a bit each day to remain in the guise of being needed. 

Because, no matter how much she hated to admit it, she wanted to be around him. Admitting it meant she knew she’d get hurt. Nothing ever lasted—nothing good, anyway. And what she had with her Mandalorian was good. So, she selfishly wanted to extend its shelf life while she could. 

“Do you need anything?” He asked. 

“I’m okay, thank you. But you should probably check on the hyperdrive. It made a funny sound when I had to disconnect this generator. Make sure we aren’t about to blow up or something.” 

He hummed his ascent and started to walk away when the ship rumbled. Y/N was knocked out of her tiny cubby, nearly ripping out the wiring harness she’d almost repaired and slamming into the Inquisitor’s half-frozen carbonite slab. The breath was punched from her lungs before she even hit the ground. Her vision blurred for a moment before she lifted her head from the dirty floor to see the armored man crumpled over the top part of the ladder. The pain was minimal as she hefted herself up with a groan and matching wince and limped her way over to the ladder and hauled herself up, pushing the man’s body further into the cockpit. 

She was happy to hear him grumble something as she rolled him over onto his back. At least he was conscious. 

“You okay?” She reached out and grabbed the chin of his helmet, making him look at her. Careful to avoid the release on the helmet. 

He rolled onto his side, out of her grip and slowly stood, obviously in pain. 

Y/N followed, checking him over for injuries, hands sliding over him to feel for blood or broken anything—a standard procedure she’d do to any of her friends—and even slid her hands under the outer edges of his armor to be sure. But then…she realized it was him. Y/N’s heart thundered in her chest and choked the air from her lungs for the second time in a short span of time. He was so close. So warm, even through all the layers. Her fingers didn’t move from underneath the cuirass. 

“I think…” She shakily cleared her throat. “I think you’ll be okay. Maybe a little sore for a few days.” He didn’t move even as her warm breath started to fog the visor of his helmet. She should be embarrassed. Pull away. At least get her fingers out from under his armor. But she didn’t. 

He was right there. Literally under her fingertips. So close. 

And still parsecs away. 

Say something. Say something. 

“Mando…I-”

The ship suddenly lurched again and the pair both had to brace and struggle to keep their footing before he turned and pressed her against the nearest wall. Mando’s fists curled at his sides as he looked at her, pressed against his ship.

“It’s the kriffing Inquisitor,” she grumbled, embarrassment still coloring her tone. But she could feel the ripple of power the second lurch had uncovered. “Bet me.” 

“I don’t gamble.” And then he was gone. 

Y/N watched him go and tried not to think of the warmth she still felt on her skin.

**

The ensuing fight had been short-lived. The Inquisitor was still blind and groggy from his carbonite bath—and still half-encased, too. The drop caused by the faulty hyperdrive had cracked his casing just enough to free his head and he’d torn the rest of his upper body free of the thin layer of carbonite and flail about, power surging.

Shoving the pest back into the machine and dousing him again solved that small issue after Y/N stepped in and whacked the Inquisitor over the head with a pipe, quickly knocking him unconscious. But that was the least of his worries. The Razor Crest was an old ship, he knew it. But he’d only seen it in this state after the Jawas had picked it apart—and maybe he was being a bit dramatic right now, it wasn’t like they were completely stranded. They were still in some sort of forward momentum…for now anyway. But there was a terrible groaning, lights flashing, and strange shuddering all at once that made it blatantly obvious they would be in trouble if they didn’t do something soon. He hauled himself up the ladder and used a few of his old tricks to calm some of the larger issues and used his diagnostic scanner to see what the internal damage was. 

The scan must have taken his entire attention because he almost jumped when Y/N appeared at his side. She pushed his hands away from the controls and then entered in new coordinates. 

“Gatalenta?” 

“Yes,” she chirped. “I stored my credits away there. Their banks have good interest rates.” She paused for a moment, as if she was going to say something else but quickly pressed a smile to her lips. It didn’t look natural, didn’t make her eyes shine like they usually did when she smiled—not that he noticed that. “They have some good mechanics there. I’ll pay for it, put some fuel in the tank, and then we can just go on our merry way.” 

“I can pay for it.” 

Y/N laughed and perched herself on the armrest of his chair, forcing him to move his arm quickly but he didn’t lean away from her. No. He liked having her close. “You are out of credits, Mando. Not nearly enough to get the fuel to your next quarry, and definitely not enough to get back to Nevarro and cash in on the one’s you’ve already put on ice. It’s fine, really.” She smiled down at him, seeing her reflection in his helmet’s shining visor. “I’ve got more than what I know what to do with and it seems like you could do with some help.” 

He was quiet for a moment, head tilted up to look at her. But, then he sighed and she knew she had won. He didn’t even have to say it. Her smile was real now and growing.

“Perfect. Now, they’re a touchy bunch. I’ll try to keep their hands off you.”

**

The Razor Crest gave an awful groan when it finally touched down on the landing pad. She stepped out first, fighting a laugh at how the ramp started to spark when it unfurled. The scent of the planet’s famous tea and fresh laundry hit her nose, even when they stood in the middle of the port, surrounded by mechanics and dirty ships and dirty parts and pieces. It calmed her, to some extent, bring back a few fond memories she’d made while she’d hidden away on the peaceful planet.

“KK!” Boomed a voice from inside one of the hangars. A familiar face, smudged with oil stepped into the light and quickly thrust out a hand for her to take. 

Her fingers curled around the man’s forearm just as his did and they shook for a beat and then two. “Miki, I thought you said you were retiring.” 

“And I thought you said you’d be back soon.” The older man was the finest mechanic she’d met during her travels and knew the Razor Crest would be in good hands. 

“I’m back now,” she said with a wink, releasing his arm. “And I have quite the project for you.” 

Miki looked over her shoulder at the Crest and let out a guffaw. “That is a death trap!”

“It’ll be fun for you. I know it. And I’ll pay you quite handsomely, to go with your handsome face.” 

His cheeks flushed as he swatted her arm. “You’re still trouble, I see.” 

“Oh, always.” She glanced back at the ship and saw the Mandalorian stepping down the ramp, also noticing the spitting sparks. Turning back to Miki, she almost laughed at how the color had drained out of his face. “He’s with me. I’m in the Bounty Hunting business now.” 

Miki sputtered. “B-bounty hunting? Ah, KK-”

“It’s a good fit. All of it for the betterment of the New Republic. You know I’d never darken your doorstep with anything illegal.” She reached out and gently squeezed his dirty hands with a smile…for emphasis. Definitely not to press a bit of acceptance toward him, to keep him asking questions. It didn’t make her feel good, it never did when she actually liked the person, but her Mandalorian’s livelihood was at stake. This was the path of least resistance. 

“I understand. I’ll make sure no one goes near the ship when I’m working on it.” 

Y/N smiled as she pulled back her hands again. “I know I could count on you, Miki.” Just as her Mandalorian stepped to her side. “Miki, this is my partner, Miki, this is the captain of that fine ship.” 

The two men eyed each other (well, she assumed the Mandalorian was eyeing the mechanic) before slowly shaking hands. Miki opened his mouth to say something when Y/N noticed a shock of color amongst the swathes of grey and tan of the hangars. It didn’t surprise her to see the other woman, there was never a thing that happened on Gatalenta that she didn’t know about. “Holdo!”

Amilyn was still a statuesque beauty with shockingly colored hair (it was pink now, different from the periwinkle it had been last time they’d seen each other) that Y/N wanted to shave off and wear as a wig. Y/N greeted her with a hug and a comment about her perfume before stepping back and waving the Mandalorian forward. “This is Mando. Friend of mine ad fellow Bounty Hunter—completely trustworthy. And this is Amilyn Holdo.” 

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Mandalorian on Gatalenta.” Amilyn held out her hand and he quickly shook it before pulling his arm back. “Welcome. And welcome back.” 

She then turned to Miki and exchanged pleasantries before looping an arm through Y/N’s and leading her away. Y/N shouted that she’d check on him and his progress at first light but told him not to rush. The older man waved her off with a fond smile. She then turned and made sure her armored man was following, and smiled at him when she saw him just a few paces back. 

People immediately took notice of his presence and for all their learned politeness and supposed opened-mindedness, the Gatalentans openly stared at him. But they did, to their credit, they did politely look away and didn’t seem to talk about him in hushed whispers as he passed by. Y/N wanted him to like it here, like she did. Even if just for a few days. Peace for a few days—he deserved it. She’d show him around her favorite places, make him the tea the planet is famous for, and maybe introduce him to the skyfaring calisthenics…maybe that last one would be a pipe dream. (It would be nice to see him tangled up in a few of those gauzy scarves though.) 

He didn’t need to know that she’d tried to find some sort of meaning or peace on the planet after she’d debauched herself across the galaxy. While she found a friend or two on the serene planet, her anger left her a permanent outsider. They were too calm, too kind, for Y/N to feel any sort of belonging. Gatalenta did, however, have a strong Jedi tradition and Y/N had studied the texts and holos they kept in their vast libraries, smiling when one librarian or archivist or another always told the same story about how they continued to tell stories of the Jedi even after the rise of the Empire. They were a quietly proud people. Yes, she hoped he liked it here if only for a little time. 

“Your apartment is just as you left it.” 

Y/N laughed. “You’re too good to me. I told you to sell it.” 

“Yes, well,” Holdo tapped her fingers against Y/N’s hand as it rested in the crook of her arm, “you don’t listen to me, I don’t listen to you. We’ll call it even.” 

She and Holdo chatted about what she had missed in the months she’d been gone as Y/N quietly continued to make sure the Mandalorian was still following as they finally arrived at the apartment. It was in one of the many sleek high rises in the city center and overlooked the clean, long lines of the city skyline and had a clear, unobstructed view of the sky and its multiples suns during the day and blanket of stars at night. It was filled with overly soft furniture in ten different shades of grey and always smelled of tea. It hadn’t changed at all. A strange small comfort. 

Holdo pulled a small satchel from her bag and pressed it into Y/N’s hands just as the pink-haired woman’s comm unit chirped. “I’ll see you later. I’ll make sure of it.” 

Y/N quickly hugged her and waved her goodbye. She lifted the satchel to her nose as the door slid closed and smiled to herself as she smelled the familiar tea leaves. “Have you had Gatalenta tea before?” She asked, turning toward the man who had sequestered himself into a corner near the large couch. 

“No.” 

“Fantastic. I’ll make you some.” She then walked toward the kitchen and set about making the tea. There was no noise from the living room but she knew he was quieter in his heavier beskar than most were in socked feet on silk rugs. So, when he appeared at her back she didn’t jump. The tea was ready quickly and she held out a cup toward him. “I have a second bedroom, just down the hall on the left. There’s a ‘fresher in there, too.” 

His gloved hands gently took the cup and he tipped his head and Y/N tried not to focus on how her heart leapt when his fingers touched hers. “Thank you.” 

“We can have real food while we’re here. Just let me know what you like and I’ll make sure it gets here.” She smiled and turned toward her own cup of tea. “Just let me know.” 

Y/N sipped at her tea, reveling in its softly sweet and acidic taste, and tried not to notice how he didn’t move from his place at her back for a while before quietly turning away and walking down to his room.

**

Damn.

He liked the tea. The diversion to Gatalenta had been a nuisance from the moment they’d landed. He hated the stares even if he was used to them. He hated that he had to leave his ship with someone he didn’t know. 

But he trusted her. 

She ordered way too much of the food he’d (shamefully) asked for and always seemed to know how just to prepare it without him even suggesting a spice or a temperature. Briefly, he wondered if that was another way ‘The Force’ manifested itself. But that sounded stupid. 

Maybe she just…

Maybe she just knew him. 

But she had never asked for his name. Never tried to take off his helmet or asked him to do so. She seemed content to just make terrible jokes and patch up his ship and make sure he didn’t die when going out to collect a quarry. But shouldn’t she want more from him? He seemed to take everything she offered without giving anything in return. Even when she screamed in the darkness of the night, she would pretend nothing happened the following morning.

Was she lonely? 

Like him? 

And maybe he was used to fighting for a living that actually talking to someone and feeling something was now an unfamiliar task. He could get thrown around and nearly murdered on a near-daily basis but talking to someone? That was giving him pause. 

But, he still left his room on the second day and found her in her apartment’s “skyfaring” room. It was a strange sort of exercise, using scarves to climb a wooden pole, but Y/N seemed to like it and it was all the rage on this planet—and she’d tried to get him to try it but he refused.

(And he liked to watch her climb.)

He sat quietly in the room for a few minutes, watching her go higher and higher as small grunts and gasps slipped by her lips and he resolutely tried to ignore how the sounds stirred something in his gut. Eventually, she made it to the top and sat at the edge of the large pole and noticed him. 

“Miki said the Crest will be ready by the end of the week.” 

“Thank you.” 

She waved it off, like she always did and drew her bottle of water up and into her hand from its spot on the floor near his feet. It looked so easy for her, to use her strange abilities. Like his Foundling. 

“Do you want to try today? I think you’d be good at it.” Y/N threw a scarf at him with an easy smile. It fluttered through the air and landed on his shoulder. He pinched the fabric between his thumb and finger and pulled it away. 

“You never ask.” 

“About what?” Her brow furrowed with the question.

“The Creed. The Helmet-”

“I know The Creed, Mando. I should’ve sworn to it ages ago but I didn’t. I was refused. I know what it means and I’d never question anyone who swore to something so sacred. It is your life.” She waved a hand again, almost flippant. “I would have been jealous a few years ago.” She turned and wrapped a scarf around the pole and quickly descended, landing on the padded floor without a sound. “You are part of a Tribe—fanatics, in the eyes of some, but a Tribe, a family nevertheless. I am dar’manda. Always.” 

“You don’t have to be. My Tribe-”

“I don’t want to talk about it, if that’s okay.” She turned and smiled. Like she didn’t have a care in the world. 

And, for some reason, that was like a blaster bolt to the chest. 

The rest of the week stretched on and he had found Y/N passing the time by letting herself be used like a walking, talking mannequin by Amilyn Holdo and the local clothing. 

“What do you think?” Y/N asked as she turned. “Do I look the part?” 

The grey dress was loose just enough to remain austere but still fit her well, giving her a feminine grace he knew she held but rarely let show. The standard scarlet cloak of the Gatalentan people was wrapped around her should and dragged along the floor behind her. She looked beautiful—but it wasn’t her. He knew that. Her tiny strip of Beskar was still across the top of her head—the one piece of hers that was…her.

“You look good.” 

She smiled. “I think I might just bring this cloak with me when we’re finished here—then we can match.” Y/N then practically bounced away from him, leaving behind the scent of her perfume. 

“Try the dark grey one next!” Holdo called out as she sat on the couch across from his. How he’d managed to sit still this long through a glorified fashion show was a miracle. 

Holdo unnerved him. She said too little and seemed to see too much. The knowing smile on her lips made him nervous. 

As Y/N undressed and redressed, Holdo sidled up to him. “She’s an anomaly, that one.” 

It didn’t really warrant a response. She would keep talking—he knew it.

“But she seems calmer with you. The Bounty Hunter.” Holdo laughed, drawing Y/N’s attention for a moment and she smiled, almost absentmindedly at them both, nose crinkling, before she flittered behind another door. “I’ve met very few people who are able to feel the Force as she does. She’s very special—and not just to me. Right, Mandalorian?” 

“Amilyn!” Y/N called out, still tucked away in the other room. 

The pink-haired woman smiled again at him and walked away. Leaving him alone on the couch. 

Thankfully, Holdo was otherwise disposed for the remainder of their stay and was only able to meet them at Miki’s hangar before they set off. He knew Y/N was sad about leaving her friend but didn’t know how to comfort her. Didn’t know how to help her—and he knew she had been up nearly all night. Her screams had echoed through the apartment, followed quickly by her sobs. 

He had actually put on his helmet and walked to her closed door, hand raised to knock…and then he didn’t. He had walked back to his room and silently slid his door shut. 

And now he stood on the warm tarmac and watched her tired eyes crinkle at the sides with her smile as she spoke with Holdo for the last time. Warmth seized his chest as he watched Y/N carefully place her forehead, her small strip of beskar, against Holdo’s hair. She held it there, held the embrace, for a stretched moment before stepping back and slowly releasing her friend’s fingers. 

Surely she knew what that was. That simple touch. 

“Don’t stay away too long this time,” Holdo murmured. 

“No promises.” Y/N winked. 

He had thanked Miki for his great work and held back from intruding on Y/N and Holdo. He nodded at the pink-haired woman as Y/N stepped to his side and Holdo nodded in return and she didn’t move even as the ramp closed. 

And Y/N watched her friend get smaller and smaller before she disappeared completely and then turned to him with a tired, small smile. “I need a nap. Wake me if you need anything.” 

He nodded and listened to her descend into the cargo hull. Familiar silence quickly fell over the ship and he readied the Crest for the jump to hyperdrive. But his thoughts quickly slipped back to his partner—is that what she was? Partner? 

He wondered what she dreamed of—was it Nar Shaddaa? Her childhood on Concordia? Or-

A scream knocked him off his seat like he’d been shoved. Durasteel groaned and the distinctive sound of carbonite cracking echoed through the cockpit. It had shaken the entire ship. 

He quickly got to his feet and slid down the ladder into the cargo hull. The damage wasn’t as bad as he’d expected—even if one of his frozen quarries was now missing an arm. He pushed a fallen container out of the way to see her curled in on herself and shaking. Her cheeks were wet but he didn’t think she’d appreciate that being pointed out. Her chest heaving with each breath and he could see the slick of sweat on the back of her neck. “Nightmare?” 

“Something like that.” She slid a hand across her neck with a grimace and wiped it on her leggings. “How bad is it?” She asked as she held out a hand to press against the wall of the ship and hauled herself to her feet on shaky legs.

“What?” 

“The damage. How bad is it? I’ll pay you for everything I broke. You know I’m good for the money.” 

He could only shake his head before he found himself reaching out and wiping a tear from her cheek. It soaked through the fabric of his glove and he felt something constrict in his chest as he looked at her distraught features. “It’s okay, Y/N. Everything’s okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, do not be a silent reader. I'm not entirely sure if I should continue this story if people aren't enjoying it? I do like writing for Din but a little feedback is appreciated. And, in these troubling times, please stay healthy and safe.


	5. The Ex-Communicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who is leaving kudos and comments. You're letting me know I should keep this little story of mine going. Also, if you guys are fans of Game of Thrones, I started an Oberyn fic, too. Cross-posted on my tumblr. Please, let me know what you think. xx

His cargo hold was at capacity with slabs of carbonite, some prettier than others. They were nearing Nevarro, finally. The last bounty was an easy catch. Not exactly the most exciting end to their adventure, but Y/N was sure there would be more. She quite liked her time on the Razor Crest. Liked her quiet partner—captain? Friend? Mandalorian. Didn’t matter—even if he said her jokes were “mostly terrible.” 

Yes. She liked this life. And it took her all this time to admit it.

But her heart hurt when she thought of what could-have-been too long. 

She could have been born “normal” and sworn to The Creed and maybe her Mandalorian would see her as an actual partner. Could see her as a possible cyar’ika. And then she could know his Tribe and he’d know her Clan. 

But Y/N did try to brush those thoughts aside as soon as they arose. It would do no good to dwell on them.

It also did no good to dwell on the strange interaction they’d had right after takeoff a few days ago. He had been so gentle with her. So kind. He hadn’t pressed her for answers about what she had been dreaming about or made her feel guilty about how her power had made a mess of his ship (again). 

But the creature from her nightmares had returned with a vengeance and left her unrested and jittery. Her nightmares hadn’t been this bad in months, had never been this bad since she’d boarded the Razor Crest. And she worried that something awful was on the horizon with how frequently the nightmares plagued her now and how the nightmares had escalated to more blood and darkness and always left her shaking. 

So, she tried busying herself by cleaning and reorganizing the Razor Crest while he handled piloting his ship. Her in her corner and him in his. It was better this way. Perhaps after a few days she wouldn’t feel it crushing her chest so much. She continued to stack containers of different kinds of ammo and the dried foodstuffs he seemed to collect—there was also a container or two of his clothes and she tried not to dwell on how they smell like his soap and him and made her smile. A slab of carbonite encasing a bail jumper had fallen on its side and she quickly righted it only for a pile of containers to fall from its precarious perch and scatter their contents all over the floor. 

“Everything’s fine!” She shouted as she heard Mando’s steps start to near the ladder. “Nothing’s broken!” Even through the ship, she heard him sigh and then retreat back to his seat at the controls. She quickly worked to clean up the mess but paused as she noticed a strange, egg-shaped thing underneath a few extra blankets a few broken components of old binders and broken durasteel, possibly bent and damaged pieces of old armor. She cleaned up the rest of the pile, carefully organizing it into different containers that wouldn’t fall over again and then grasped the egg…thing and turned it over. It didn’t take long to realize it was a pram. A little damaged and dirty, but a pram nonetheless. 

What was he doing with a pram? She dusted it off and fired it up, watching it hover over the ground with a dull humming sound—probably from being in storage for so long. And the longer she stared, the more questions she had. They bubbled and turned and grew until she couldn’t ignore them. 

Curiosity had always been one of her vices. 

She powered the pram down and hefted it under her arm and walked toward the cockpit.

Mando was still piloting, an unmoving sentinel at his post, as she settled into her usual seat behind him, the pram sitting near her feet. How could she phrase this delicately? That had never been her strong suit—not that her former lifestyles had really given her ample opportunity to learn the niceties of civil conversation. “Do you have a kid?” 

“What?” His helmet snapped to the side, scrapping against his pauldron with a screech she would have found hilarious in any other situation.

She ignored how the single word sounded strangled behind his helmet and pushed the pram toward him with the toe of her boot. “Yours? Because you don’t seem the type to be in the business of kidnapping kids.” 

While he was quiet, Y/N knew he would answer. And she was always willing to wait to hear him. 

“It was a Foundling.” 

Something akin to warmth surged in her chest. “You had a Foundling? What a blessing. I’m assuming you returned them to their people?” She pointed at the pram. “If you were using this, they must’ve been too young to train.” The rules of Foundlings had been something she still treasured—knowing that there was a culture who fully embraced the orphaned and the hurt. Even if that same culture had rejected her—it was a solace to know that other children were cared for within the strong embrace of Mandalore. 

“Something like that,” was his answer. 

Y/N pulled the pram back and set in the corner and then settled back into her small seat. “There was that one hunter a handful of years ago—heard about him all the way on Nar Shaddaa, you know—that did run a job for some big shot that wanted some baby or another. Caused quite a fuss in the underground.” 

The Mandalorian didn’t say anything. Didn’t toggle any switches. Didn’t move his head at all. 

And that was quite telling for Y/N, despite knowing how much or how little he said. “It was _you._ " It dawned on her. "Of course it was you. For all your tough-guy nonsense, a cute face was your weak point.” 

“It isn’t a weak point. He was a kid—I didn’t…”

Y/N almost felt bad for bringing it up—but feelings like that had been stamped out early, too. “You’ll have to clear up some details about that whole thing, you know. I’m sure the rumors I heard on that moon weren’t reliable.” She drummed her knuckles against her knee as she, too, looked out to the passing stars. “I know you were a good guy, Mando. But don’t worry; your secret is safe with me.” 

And she completely expected him to never speak of it again. Everything she had said was a joke, a poke at the Rancor because she knew he was tightlipped. 

It was a joke. 

And yet-

“My foundling…he’s like you. He’s Force-Sensitive.” 

Y/N’s fingers twitched and she tried not to flinch when she heard something—probably a container filled with cartridges for his amban rifle, something she had carefully placed in a certain location just a few minutes ago—fall to the ground with a muffled ‘clang.’ “Oh?” Nice recovery. “Is…is that why he is no longer in your care?” 

His helmet snapped to the side to look at her for the second time. “No.” 

“Oh.” Again, nice recovery. But she couldn’t deny how the relief washed over her like a wave. There wasn’t another lost, little kid out in the cold reaches of the galaxy without a family and struggling with powers they didn’t understand. 

Good. 

“Where is he?” 

“He’s with…others like him. Like you. Learning how to use his power.” 

“There are more? I thought-”

“They’re hidden. Still rebuilding their Order from what the Empire did to their numbers.” 

Y/N closed her eyes and smiled as her head hit the back of the seat. A strange hope bloomed in her lungs like an overgrown Rurylis flower. It had never really occurred to her that there could be more people in the galaxy like her. Holdo had given her more information about the destruction of the Jedi Order at the dawn of the Empire—far more than Y/N had been able to glean from her pilfered and boot-legged history holobooks. It had seemed so definite. Nothing and no one could recover from that, surely. 

But that had been wrong.

“Does he like it there, your foundling?” 

“He does.” 

The tender, soft tone of his voice swept around her heart and gripped it tight. Her Mandalorian cared for his foundling—his Force-Sensitive foundling—despite everything telling him he shouldn’t. “You’ve found all the loopholes you could, haven’t you, Mando?”

His answering silence made her laugh.

**

Nevarro hadn’t changed much. Greef still tried to get him to take a smaller cut and the other bounty hunters still hated him. The only difference on the surface was that Cara nudged a bottle of spochka into his hand as they left and told him to stay safe. Cara did eye Y/N for a moment before his companion seemed to instantly endear herself to the former Shocktrooper and she was leaving with a bottle of spochka, too.

“You never told me you had such beautiful friends, Mando,” Y/N said as they were walking away. 

He heard Cara’s laugh over the howling wind. 

But there were quieter differences, too. He knew his covert had left. What was left of them eventually came together again, settling on the other side of the galaxy. They didn’t hide in the sewers anymore, but they still carefully guarded their true numbers. 

Again, he wondered if he could take Y/N to them. 

She was Mandalorian. She belonged with her people. 

He shut the loading ramp as she scurried in behind him and they both glanced at the last, slightly broken slab of carbonite—the last one. The form of the Inquisitor was still ugly and looked even worse when it wasn’t surrounded by other bounties to draw the eye somewhere else. 

“Just Chandrilla now.” She leaned against the slab with a sigh. “And then you said you’re taking some time off.” She was quiet, eyes tracing the broken chunk of carbonite, avoiding his visor. “I was thinking-”

For the umpteenth time, the Razor Crest rocked with an assault. He knew the sound well enough to recognize someone had thrown a thermal detonator at his ship even when he was knocked to his knees and she was flung backwards, back slapping against the containers she had carefully piled just days ago.

He hauled himself up to his feet and she raced to the small armory cabinet, pulling out his Amban rifle and tossing it to him. He caught it as she pulled out two blasters of her own. 

“The shields are down. Canons too, probably. I’ll go out the front—you take the back.” 

“No-”

“Great!” She pressed the button to lower the side ramp and leapt out, blasters firing. And, really, he had no choice other than to follow her plan. 

The rear hatch opened and the sound of blaster fire and dying screams from other bounty hunters hit his ears through the helmet along with Greef’s shouting, “you’re all so stupid!” and Cara shouting something nonsensical, firing off a rifle of her own at their attackers. He ran toward the small group of bounty hunters attacking his ship, knowing their focus was mainly on Y/N. 

He fired, leaving only dust in his wake and burnt clothes. It drew the other hunters’ attention and they changed their focus. “Kill him!” One yelled. 

The firefight didn’t last long. The bounty hunters were young and dumb. The ones that Cara and Y/N didn’t mow down, he easily took care of. The wind was still biting, throwing sand and (now) debris of the bounty hunters against his armor. His heart was racing, just a bit, as it always did when there was a bit of a struggle. And he looked to Y/N to see her chest heaving with her breaths but a small smile on her face. 

“You good?” Cara asked as she walked toward him. Greef was shaking his head in the background herding the spectators back into the cantina. 

“Fine.” 

But then there was movement at his side and he pivoted. A young Esoomian pointed his blaster at his head and fired. 

Mando fully expected for it to hit. He couldn’t dodge it from that distance nor in that time. But then the blaster bolt just…stopped. A breath away from his helmet’s visor.  
“Another one?!” Cara hollered. “How did you find another one?” 

He turned his head to see Y/N’s arm outstretched, fingers trembling in his direction and teeth pulled in a snarl. 

His would-be killer was frozen too—probably from shock. Seeing something like a blaster bolt frozen in the air usually zapped the fight out of everyone. With a twitch of her fingers, she flung it back at the Esoomian, and knocking them from their feet with a new hole in their head. Y/N turned away from him before he could even acknowledge what she’d done. How she saved him.

But he filed it away and surveyed his ship. And what he found only compounded the thought that the now-dead bounty hunters were young and dumb. The thermal detonator had gone off too far from his ship to really cause any damage other than a few cosmetic scratches and dents and he knew they’d be able to take off without any issue. 

Again, he said goodbye to Cara, who grumbled about how she told the young hunters that they’d never be able to steal his credits, and wished him luck for the second time that day. He clambered onto his ship and raised the shields before he even started the engines. The take-off was a little bumpy, the landing gear might need to be straightened when they land on Chandrila, but soon they were amongst the stars again. Safe. 

Y/N was strangely quiet as she sat behind him in her little chair. He could hear her leg bouncing against the metal floor. He was going to ask her what was wrong—obviously the little firefight was over, neither one of them were injured—but then her boots hit the floor with a metallic clang and she was suddenly at his side and spinning his chair and—  
Beskar hit beskar. The soft sound reverberated through the hull of the ship, echoing in his chest. Slowly, she pulled her hands away from him and left a chill in her wake he’d swear he could feel through his armor. His fingers twitched as if they had minds of their own—and all of them were crying out to pull her close again, to feel her touch and be touched. 

“Sorry.” 

He’s never head her voice so soft or small.

**

Coming that close to losing him had short circuited something in her brain.

How could she be so stupid? She knew exactly what that type of touch meant—to him, to any Mandalorian—and she still did it. Basically kissed him.

 _Actually_ kissed him, if his puritanical clan leaned that heavily into touch. 

Kriff.

But that had always been her downfall. The stupid need for touch—when she was getting bruised and bloodied in the fighting pits, she could pretend those violent touches were enough. After all, it wasn’t as if Nar Shaddaa afforded anyone the opportunity to really forge any sort of relationship where she could revel in simple contact. Yenna had always called her “handsy” but never brushed away Y/N’s touch when she reached out.

Amilyn had readily given physical affection and the scrappers had been fond of clapping each other on the backs after a long shift. Maybe she had forgotten her place. But Y/N knew that was a lie as soon as she thought it. She’d wanted to touch him and be touched. And her selfishness had won out over her sense of politeness for a split second. 

The Keldabe Kiss—aside from a crude nickname for a helmeted Mandalorian head-butting an opponent—was usually a soft, intimate gesture before lovers and family. A show of affection when armor made it cumbersome. 

And she’d given one to her Mandalorian. 

“Sorry,” she whispered again as she continued to stumble backwards, feet tangling together and nearly sending her to the ground once and then twice. Words clawed and burned at her throat, aching to be spilled but she bit them back and turned away, quickly sliding down the ladder into the hold and basically hiding in shame behind the last slab of carbonite. Don’t follow me, she thought. Not now. All she had thought about was how close he’d come to death that day. The closest he’d come since he chased the Inquisitor. It shook something strange inside her. Something she couldn’t name and it had bubbled over and she had pressed her forehead against his in a stupid moment of irrationality. “So stupid,” she whispered to herself, patting at her chest and grimacing when all she felt was sand. A shower then, it seemed. Maybe the steam would make her less of an idiot.

**

It had been quiet for a bit too long, considering his company.

And he was almost rue to admit that he had grown used to hearing her steps echo in his ship, her quiet mumblings to herself when she thought he wasn’t listening, and her terrible jokes. She liked to ask about how he was doing, even if it was day three into a trip and nothing had changed except their location in the cosmos. 

He engaged the auto pilot and slipped down into the main part of his ship. A quick look around the now, largely empty hold offered nothing. She wasn’t there. Then the sound of the sonic shower sputtering on let him release some of the tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in his shoulders. She was fine. 

Even if she had run away from him. 

Maybe he could talk to her about it when she got out of the shower. He could tell her that he…

Something shiny caught his eye. A few months ago, something like this in the middle of his ship wouldn’t give him a second thought. But she had been steadfast in organizing, cleaning, that he started to notice things when they were out of place. He stepped closer and grabbed it from a hook on the wall near the bathroom, usually reserved for pieces of his beskar when he was about to sleep in the small little cubby he called his and she was asleep in the cockpit. (He had tried to get her to take the cubby a week into their partnership, she had refused.)

The fabric was soft, he could tell even through his gloves. Well-loved and well-used. He flipped it over and he let out a long breath. His first, true look at the small slip of beskar she guarded so closely. There was a signet—a Krayt Dragon made of the tiniest scraps of the precious metal, not unlike the Mudhorn that adorned his pauldron. Usually, that small signet was tucked to the back of her neck, out of sight and he would never ask for her to reveal it. But now he was holding it in his hand like a dirty secret. Over the top of the dragon was a marking he thought had been wiped from Mandalore’s surface. Death Watch—the factions of Mandalorians who had sided with an outsider in a coup in an effort to restore Mandalore’s tradition of military dominance, setting off the Mandalorian Civil War and plunging the system into chaos which allowed the Empire to easily carry out the Great Purge. They were blood-thirsty and of the old Mandalorian ways of glory through violence. Honor at the trigger of a blaster. But they were also loyal and protective and strong. Death Watch had been the ones to pull him out of that hole when the droids attacked. They had been the ones to save him, give him purpose.  
Was this her family history? Was this the heritage in her blood? He didn’t know the family signet’s history. But he could ask. 

Almost reverently, he placed her tiny scrap of cloth and beskar back on the hook and retreated back into the cockpit. 

The comm code he’d been given was rarely used. He usually just showed up, gave all the credits he could spare to the Armorer and left without much fanfare. But he plugged in the code and waited. The hale was quickly answered. 

“This is a surprise.” The Armorer’s helmet was displayed in blue, wavy light. The sound of the fires he knew to be behind her carried through the call.

“I have found…another Mandalorian.” 

“Oh?” It was the most interested he’d ever heard her voice. 

“By blood, not by Creed. Born on Concordia. She has a small bit of her family’s beskar. A signet, I was hoping you could tell me-”

“It is not my place nor yours to delve in a person’s life. If she has chosen to not swear The Creed, she is-”

“But she wants to,” he added, almost yelling. “She wants to, I know it. I just want to understand why she was never given the chance.” 

The Armorer was quiet then. Just for a moment. “What is the signet?” 

“A krayt dragon.” 

“And a Concordian, you said?” She paused, her helmet tilting ever so slightly. “The clan of whom you speak was forced out by the Manda’lor after the Great Purge. They were part of Death Watch. But their beliefs went beyond just the adoption of our traditional values. They wanted Mandalorian domination throughout the Galaxy. They threatened our way of life, our survival, by fighting against Empire and Rebellion and destroying all who stood in their path.” She paused again. “If she is part of this clan, take great care.” 

“She cannot swear The Creed?” He asked, feeling something strange, some strange loss echo in his chest. 

“Her Clan was ex-communicated. It would be unwise.” 

He let the silence stretch between them for a beat and then two before he nodded. “I understand. Thank you.” The Armorer nodded and they disconnected the call and he stared at the spot where the blue helmet had once occupied and tried to reign in the warring, unfamiliar emotions he felt rumbling in his gut. 

Shouldn’t she be allowed to swear The Creed? She was abandoned by her family, she should have been a Foundling. She should have sworn The Creed and then he could…

He couldn’t finish the thought. Focusing on getting the last shipment to Senator Organa had to be his focus. 

There wasn’t room for anything else. 

But his thoughts continued to grow and tumble and evolve and by the time they landed on Chandrila and he quietly asked her to stay on the ship, he had made his choice. The meeting with Organa didn’t take long and he was soon richer than he ever had been—aside from when he had been paid for delivering his Foundling to the Imp. The New Republic paid well, it seemed. Or, at least, Organa did. She wished him luck on his next endeavor and parted with the strange saying she and her brother seemed fond of: “may the Force be with you.” 

He found Y/N sitting in her chair, reading a holo about Chandrila when he returned. 

“I want to show you something.” 

And his chest actually hurt with the smile she gave him. “I’d like that. And it seems we have some free time on our hands.” 

He plugged in the coordinates he shouldn’t have and told her to settle in for a long trip. She didn’t seem to mind—she never seemed to mind. Days passed in a strange sort of fog and he fought with himself—did he want to remember how this all felt? This quiet companionship he had with her and how it was just so easy to fall into routines with her and how he felt strangely (stupidly) safe when he knew she was at his back. How he… Or did he want to forget everything? 

She cracked more terrible jokes and he almost laughed a time or two. 

But soon, they landed. His time was up, the decision had been made for him now. The hatch of the crest hissed as it opened, revealing the rolling green hills of the secret planet and the temple and small housing outcroppings. The little padawans were running around in what had to be a training exercise, pushing and pulling stones bigger than their bodies up into the air with ease. 

The air always felt different here, almost electric. Maybe it was ‘the force’ or whatever stupid thing they called it. And if he felt it...his head tilted to the side to see her start to marvel at the new surroundings, surely she did, too. He watched her head turn from one side to the other, watching the other “Force-sensitives” practice. And slowly, slowly, her shoulders took on a rigidity that he’d only seen once or twice before. “You’re leaving me here.”

“I am.” 

She nodded but didn’t look at him. “Right.” Y/N rolled her shoulders once then stepped off the ramp without a backward glance. 

He wanted to scream, shout and tell her that she deserved more than just bounty hunting—deserved to learn how special she was—deserved to truly learn her own strength. That she deserved to be with people who were like her, who accepted her. But he didn’t say that. Didn’t say anything. He watched her greet Skywalker with a small smile and then disappear with him as the man showed her around the grounds. 

A soft coo pulled his attention downward. His foundling had wrapped his little arms around his boot and looked up at him, large, dark eyes questioning. He had miniaturized robes, the same as everyone else on this hidden planet and he looked ridiculous. They were still too big, dragging against the ground. The Mandalorian bent and pulled him into his hold. Little green hands pressed against his helmet in greeting. “I brought someone else—someone I think you’ll like.” 

There was an answering whine and then the sensation of someone poking at his mind. As quickly as it started, it stopped, but not before the image of Y/N’s smiling face flashed in his mind’s eye. 

“Learned a new trick?” He sighed behind his helmet. 

His foundling cooed. 

“Let’s keep that between us, yeah? She doesn’t need to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please scream at me.


	6. The Padawan

It had only been a little over a standard Galactic year since she’d been dropped off on the planet that didn’t exist. She thought the robes itched, the padawan braid was annoying, and she was older than all the other “padwans” by almost ten years at a minimum and the younglings were basically babies in her eyes. The person closest to her age was Luke Skywalker—the last Jedi Master. Luke was kind and patient with her and, in the right light, she found him handsome. And maybe, just maybe, she could have tried to pursue something with him. Luke had everything going for him, really. 

And that’s what made it worse. She knew she should find a comfort in Luke’s soft murmurs when the rest of the padwans and younglings had retired for the night—he seemed to gravitate toward her, as if he were desperate for some conversation with someone closer to his age. She knew she should revel in the way he confided in her about his struggles with continuing the Jedi way and training others. “I’ve learned from the old Order’s mistakes. I don’t want my padawans to deprive themselves of relationships that can help them see the Light in the galaxy. Love is the Light Side of the Force in its purest form. Family, friends, romantic partners, all of it should be treasured,” he said one night as the fire in the pit started to die. 

He said everything right. It was easy to see that his time in the Rebellion had only served to make him more protective of the people he loved. Any person would be lucky to have Luke in their lives. And she wanted—desperately—to feel something more than respect and amity toward him. 

But she couldn’t. 

Instead, she focused on the other bonds she’d managed to forge within the temple walls. 

The little green alien, her Mandalorian’s Foundling, seemed to instantly seek her out after she’d settled into the small stone hut she’d been given as a personal room. His coos and giggles were a balm to her fraying soul and he exuded Light and she reveled in it. Sometimes she would wake in the morning to see him cuddled up on her chest, one of his big ears pressed over her heart. A simple display of affection she had never had before. The little green guy was her Starchild—not that she’d ever admit to giving him the nickname.

And it was because of Starchild, she’d been able to befriend Ben Solo—the prince of New Alderaan and one of the two people her dreaming mind had given her visions of—both terrible and beautiful. He was awkward and giggly and desperate for any sort of companionship. His relation to Luke was an open secret within the ranks of Force users but the fact that he was Leia Organa’s son was not. Luke had confided in her one night that he thought his nephew would be pulled in two separate directions when the time came for him to assume the place on the Throne of New Alderaan. 

Luke wanted to say something else, she could feel him waffling with it, but he kept quiet and smiled at her. “Perhaps you could talk to him. You are both fond of the little green one.” And Luke’s smile was so soft and hopeful she couldn’t say no. 

And it had started slow, asking Ben to help her feed the little green guy his strange diet of frogs and bone broth and then it was invitations for Ben to spar or to help her meditate—she was still very bad at it, despite Luke and Ben’s best efforts. She kept her dreams and visions of him to herself. How would she phrase that, anyway? “Hey, I’ve seen how you cry when you’re alone.” Hard pass. 

Little by little, Ben was choosing her over the other Padawans to spend time with outside training exercises. It was increasingly apparent that most of the other padawans, the little bastards, wanted to have Ben “on their side” because he was Luke’s nephew. Not because he was kind. Not because he was gentle. Not because he told terrible but funny jokes. But just because of his relationship with Luke. 

It broke her heart a little bit, to see how he used to bask in their sugar-coated praises and then scurry off to do their bidding; asking Luke for changes in training time or a different type of food to be delivered on the bi-monthly foodstuffs run. But now she was here, looming at his back whenever another person tried to manipulate him. 

“Everyone thinks you’re scary,” Ben said to her one night. He’d asked her to come out to grassy ledge that looked over the black ocean and look out at the stars after dinner. From her dreams (but Luke had insisted they were visions when she had told him about the little, lost girl in the desert. “But be mindful of visions, Y/N. The future is always in motion. Difficult to see.”), she knew Ben escaped here when he was feeling sad. It was a special place for him to share, she understood that. 

“Well, good, Little Prince. Maybe I’ll keep all those scavengers away from you.” They both tilted their heads up to look at the stars and a red meteor streaked across the sky. 

“They’re not scavengers,” he muttered. 

“They are. Everybody needs a friend—and not those people who are nice to you because they want something. A real friend.”

“You want to be my friend?” He asked, voice small.

“We’re already friends, Little Prince. I’m almost insulted.”

“I’d like to be friends,” he softly said, casting a shy look in her direction. “I’d really like that.” 

Y/N smiled and clapped him twice on the back and nearly snickered at his wince. “Great. Just so you know, I’m very annoying and you can’t get rid of me now.” 

“I knew that already.” 

Y/N laughed. “You’re gonna be just fine, Little Prince. I’ll make sure of it.” She wanted to ask him about the visions she’d had about him. What voices he’d heard in the dark of the night. Of the shadows she could feel slithering beneath his Force Signature. But she didn’t. Y/N didn’t want to cheapen the blossoming friendship she had with the younger boy. The young Force user who had become a bit of a younger brother she never had. “We’re all just a bunch of misfits, here. Might as well stick together.” 

Ben huffed. “You don’t understand. They just left me here. Told me that I could…I don’t know, ‘find myself’ or something like that.” 

“Your mom visits.” 

“Only because she feels guilty,” Ben bit out.

Y/N hummed and nodded—but then paused. “Wait. Do you really think I wanted to be here?” 

Ben’s dark eyes narrowed, confused. “Don’t you?” 

“Just because I’m not throwing a fit everyday doesn’t mean I wanted to be here, Little Prince. It’s called making the best of a shitty situation or ‘being an adult.’ Whatever. But if you want to compare emotional trauma we can do that.” 

The boy next to her sniffled. “What? Your parents think you’re dangerous, too?” 

And Y/N spent the next few minutes telling him of the Mandalorian hatred for the Jedi and her abandonment in Hutt Space and her childhood in the fighting pits and the odd jobs she’d managed to find between bouts. “And then, I meet Mando. Let him chase me around the galaxy a time or two to kill some time. I thought we were friends. But he just left me here, too.” She sighed and let herself wallow for only a few heartbeats before shaking it away. “So, everyone has bantha-fodder in their pasts, Little Prince. It gets a little easier to handle with friends. We can’t always, you know, choose what sort of circumstances we were born into. We just…have to make the best of what we got.”

A coo pulled their attention away from the stars for a moment. Her Starchild was waddling up the hill toward them and quickly climbed into Ben’s lap. Ben smiled down at the little guy and let him tug at his robes and then at the little braid behind his right ear. “You’re supposed to be asleep.” 

An answering giggle. 

“And then there’s this little one,” Y/N started, fighting a smile. “Older than you and me and Luke and hunted all of his life because he can move things with his mind.”

Ben nodded, knowing the Child’s story. “It’s not like he can help it.” 

She nudged Ben’s arm. “See?” 

Ben looked at her, a little bashful, and then nodded. 

Little green hands reached up toward the stars and he whined, wanting to pull them down to hold. 

“You can’t grab the stars just yet. One day, maybe.” Ben trailed a finger against one of his ears and smiled when the little guy cooed in delight. “One day, we can hold the stars.”

**

The hatch hissed and dropped and the Mandalorian quickly walked out onto the familiar green, lush grass that always left his boots slick with dew, no matter the time. The soft sounds of quiet conversation met his ears.

_“It just takes practice.” “The point of meditation is to find your center.”_

A familiar laugh instantly drew his attention. 

There she was, framed by sunlight and dressed in the strange robes of the Jedi. His foundling was balanced easily on her hip and her familiar strip of fabric and beskar was hanging around her neck like some sort of strange necklace, nearly tangling with the strange, beaded braid all of them seemed to have. She was holding out her other hand and pushing a large kyber crystal up and down with just a twitch of her fingers. The Child was cooing and reaching for the crystal with tiny hands. 

Perfect. It was the perfect, strange picture. 

Then, little Ben scooted up behind her and smiled. He traced a finger against the Child’s ear and laughed as the crystal suddenly shot into the air. It caught the sun’s rays and sent rainbows cascading over the grass. It was the first time he’d seen her since they’d parted ways. Every other time he’d landed here, she’d been off training or something—not that he asked after her. Of course not. And it wasn’t a relief to finally see her face again. 

“Ah, it is good to see you again.” Luke walked up to him with a smile and thankfully pulled his attention away from how she laughed with his Foundling.

The Mandalorian crossed his arms and nodded. 

“He’s progressing remarkably since the last time you’ve visited.” 

“That’s good.” 

Luke continued to smile and then he found himself following the Jedi away from the Crest and toward the main temple as Luke spoke of his Foundling’s progress. Words like levitation, meditation, control, and a few others he didn’t deem necessary to remember passed his lips—the fact that his Foundling was flourishing was all that he needed to know. They walked by the small groupings of padawans and younglings as they went about their various tasks and soon the shadows of the temple swallowed them. Whispers slipped by from around corners in different languages and dialects and soft footsteps slapping against the stone floor echoed. The temple felt different. Like something was curling around him—he wasn’t sure if it was a warm embrace or a crushing stranglehold. 

Luke, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease within the temple’s walls. He continued to lead the Mandalorian through the halls before stopping at what he could only assume was Luke’s personal office. Like the rest of the temple, it was made of dark grey stone and the windows were covered in sheer blue curtains that filtered the sunlight and left everything in an azure haze. Even his worn, wooden desk and chair was bathed in the cool-toned light. “Your Foundling insisted, in his own special way, that you be given this,” Luke said as he reached into the desk drawer to pull something from its depths. He placed it in the Mandalorian’s hands with a soft smile. “He’s very fond of you.” 

He opened his fist to look at the small, simple bracelet. It was made of a strip of fabric and there was a small, cracked crystal hanging from it with a bit of wrapped copper wire. 

“It’s kyber,” Luke explained. “Used for lightsabers. Your Foundling found that when he was searching for a crystal for the lightsaber I’d like him to build.” 

“You want him to build a weapon?” He asked, fist curling tight around the bracelet.

Luke smiled easily. “Not for a few decades, at least. But I didn’t want to leave him behind when we went to Ilum. The rest of the padawans here are at a stage where constructing their own lightsaber is a rite of passage. Most of the other younglings learn about the sanctity of the process—but your Foundling was quite quick to venture off into the caves with Ben. I would never endanger him. Would never endanger any of them under my care.” Luke cocked his head to the side. “Your other Foundling—Y/N-”

“She wasn’t a _Foundling_.” The words were bit out but the voice modulator seemed to almost soften the blow. 

Luke nodded. “Ah, yes. Of course. My mistake. Either way, Y/N is quite talented, too. I don’t think we’ve ever discussed her progress before. Do you not find it strange that you have found two of the most naturally gifted Force users?” It didn’t seem like Luke needed an answer as he pressed forward. “A little refining is needed in Y/N’s case. I feel like she is holding back when it comes to her true potential and she is still learning how to truly feel the Force, meditate, but she is one of my finest pupils.” 

The affection clearly lacing Luke’s tone nearly turned his stomach. It could be friendly. Honestly. A warmth that stemmed from respect and amity. But he still didn’t like hearing it. 

But she wasn’t his anything. Not his bounty. Not his co-captain or bounty hunting back up. She wasn’t his. 

“You’re easier to read than she is, you know.” 

“What?” 

“Y/N is,” he waved a hand, “very much a locked box. One of the skills a Jedi learns is how to read people, their emotions they project, their thoughts. Even behind that helmet of yours, I can feel quite a bit.” 

It was becoming increasingly clear why the Mandalorians hated the Jedi. That wasn’t natural. Nor was it fair. 

“Tell me, was she any different with you? I can see her smile, of course. See her laugh or grimace. But I don’t feel it. The only time I feel anything from her is when she is with your Foundling or Ben. The tiniest bit of joy slips out.” 

“I can’t read people.” But it was a small solace to know she felt joy here—even it was only sometimes. 

“That’s right.” Another nod, as if he’d been expecting that answer. 

“Master Luke!” A small twi’lek boy barreled into the office, huffing and puffing, and nearly slid into the desk as he tried to stop. “Master Luke—” he seemed to realize there was an armored man in the room too and his blue cheeks flushed lilac. “Oh. Hi.” 

“What is it, Tol?” Luke asked, barely hiding his smile. 

Tol’s eyes flickered back to the Mandalorian. “Ummm…” 

Mando turned and let himself out of the office without being excused. He thought he knew his way back out—but within a handful of turns, he had realized he was lost within the labyrinthine halls of the temple. He turned one way and then the next, trying to see if he could see some bit of real sunlight leading to an exit. 

“You’re going in circles, you know.” 

He almost froze at the sound of her voice. She emerged from the blue-tinged shadows like a wraith. The Child was in her arms and already extending his hands toward him, wanting to be held. She wordlessly handed him over and a small smile touched her lips as she looked at the little green alien. 

“I’ll lead you out, c’mon.” 

Words were clawing at his throat as she led him through the halls and back out into the sunlight. He wanted to say something. To ask how she was doing, if she liked her life here, if she resented him. But she just kept walking and didn’t look back. Again. 

A coo pulled his attention. His Foundling smiled up at him and, for a moment, everything was okay. He spent a few hours with him in a strange pantomime of domesticity and it unburdened his soul just a fraction. He was just a man caring for his Foundling. There were no bounties to catch. There were no phantom footsteps in the hollows of his ship that made his chest hurt. He was just here, in the warm sunlight, with his Foundling.

But his Foundling could sense something was wrong by the way he kept pressing his hands to his chin or neck and flashes of their time together on the Crest appeared in his mind. He was feeding him happy memories—as if he knew Mando warred with himself. As he moved to pry the little, green hands away from his helmet, the Child let out a chirp and tugged at the bracelet as it hung from his wrist. “Yeah, I got it.” Happy hands slapped against his helmet with a giggle. 

But he eventually did have to leave and handed him over to Ben who appeared, saying that his Foundling was needed for a youngling training exercise with a sheepish smile. The little green child happily cooed in the young prince’s hold and waved as he was carried away. 

The Mandalorian watched them go, disappearing over the crest of a green hill, waiting until the last possible moment to leave. The hatch hissed as it opened and he walked up, boots slapping against durasteel and let the familiar shadows engulf him again as he slapped the control to close it again. He turned right before the hatch closed and saw Y/N standing just on the other side. Just as beautiful as ever—even if her eyes seemed sad. 

He should say something. 

The hatch closed. 

He didn’t.

**

“You seem…” Ben waved a hand. “Off.”

“Thanks for that, Little Prince.” She wiped the sweat off her forehead and finished her stretch. “Tell me again why we need to run every morning. What could that possibly help me do anything?” Y/N flopped down on the grass and threw an arm over her face. 

“I don’t know,” Ben said as he sat beside her. “But are you okay?” 

She raised her arm and looked at him. “Am I projecting?” 

“You never project, Y/N. I just know you.” 

Y/N pushed up onto her elbows to look at him with an incredulous smile. “You are such a brat.” 

Ben laughed. His skin was tinged an adorable pink from his run and his dark hair was sticking up at odd angles with a boyish charm that made her smile despite the ever-present ache in her chest. He would grow up to break hearts, she was sure of it. Her adopted little brother. He just needed to like himself a bit more. 

They both collapsed back onto the dew-slick grass and watched the clouds slip across the sky and let sweat cool on their skin. The chatter of younglings filtered by, soft and tittering, followed by Luke trying to herd them into some task or another. 

“I know you’re sad,” Ben said. “You’re always sad after the Mandalorian visits.” 

“I’m not sad, Ben.” 

One of his hands reached out and blindly slapped at her arm. “Stop.” He paused and sighed. “You can be sad with me.” 

“I know.” Y/N closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face. Shoving emotions down to the depths of her stomach was a normal thing, second nature, to her. But Luke had insisted that his new Jedi Order be allowed to feel, to express emotions in a healthy way—an attempt, she supposed, to ward off any repeats of Anakin Skywalker. The story of Luke’s father—and Ben’s grandfather—had been shared at one of their late night fireside chats and Luke had spoken so passionately about how love and laughter and happiness were to be cultivated and celebrated in his younglings and padawans. Fear and anger were to be dealt with and soothed. “A balance,” he’d said. Maybe that was why Luke always seemed concerned that he could not ‘read’ her. 

“Your Force signature. It feels like mine,” Ben said as he closed his eyes. “It feels like…there’s something waiting. Just beneath the surface.” 

And that was true. She’d always felt a kinship with Ben that reached beyond the dreams she’d had of him or the terrible jokes they always found so funny. There was something intrinsically natural about her protective, familial bond she felt when she looked at him. Maybe their Force signatures complimented each other. If she concentrated enough, actually managed to meditate correctly, she could see the Force wrapping around Ben. It was always a hazy sort of silver, flecked with sapphire blue. She knew his terrors. Knew the voices he heard whisper at night. And she knew the insidious sort of dormancy her anger had created within herself. She wanted the Force to be kind to Ben—just to Ben, if need be. “Yeah, Little Prince. It’s the ability to make Luke mad at a moment’s notice.” 

Ben huffed out a laugh and smacked at her arm again. 

They slipped into an easy quiet then, letting the wind whistle through the grass for a moment or two. And Y/N tried to file through some of the meditation techniques Luke had attempted to teach her. She could never quite get them right when she was in the temple. But they came a little easier when she was out in the sun. But she was still bad at it.

She resisted a sigh and cracked an eye open to look at Ben who had fallen asleep beside her. His nightmares had definitely become few and far between and she was thankful for it. Every once in a while, she’d still get a glimpse inside his life as he struggled to sleep. But he was calmer now, it seemed. He held her Starchild tight and made him laugh and let himself laugh, too. He was letting himself be Ben. She wasn’t vain enough to assume that she was the sole cause of it, but she’d like to think that she helped. 

But she was getting off track. For so long, she’d kept everything so deeply buried that she wasn’t even sure she knew how to attempt to ‘unlock’ her mind to project what she was feeling. The only time she truly felt like she expressed something was when she felt lightning dance across her skin—and the last time she’d down that she’d taken down the Hutt’s palace. 

But wait…that wasn’t true. 

The last time she’d expressed something was when she’d pressed her forehead against her Mandalorian’s helmet in a fit of panic and relief. 

And…well, that didn’t really work out for her, did it?

She let a little more time slip, watched more clouds go by, and smiled as Ben started to snore. He must have been really tired. But, eventually, she kicked her leg out and nudged her foot against his to wake him up. He groaned and rolled over, brown eyes bleary and unfocused. 

“What?” 

“C’mon, Little Prince. We’re supposed to be productive padawans or whatever.” 

Ben groaned and shut his eyes again.

“You’re going to get sunburned. Again.” When he didn’t move, even to throw an arm over his face to block the sun, Y/N stood and grabbed at his hands, hauling him to his feet. “Luke’s basically given us free reign until lunch. Have you finished putting together your lightsaber?” 

Ben pulled his hands away and rubbed a fist into his eye. “Yeah. You?” 

“Of course. Now, let’s test them out.” She grabbed ahold of his belt and tugged him along toward her hut, which was thankfully close to his, until he slapped at her hand. 

“We’re not supposed-”

“Ben. Live a little. He’s busy with the younglings. Are you going to tell him?” 

Ben paused. “…no.” 

“Great.” She pushed the little cloth covering that acted as her door away and slipped inside the hut and retrieved hers as she knew Ben was grabbing his. The older padawans had been given the task of assembling their lightsabers after they returned from Ilum. It hadn’t taken Y/N very long to construct hers, the process coming naturally—even if it did require an egregious amount of time meditating. 

Ben was waiting for her, his lightsaber dangling in his grip, as she stepped back outside. He eyed her two hilts with a frown. “I still think it isn’t fair that you got two.” 

“The Force works in mysterious ways, young padawan,” she intoned and fought a smirk. But she had thought it strange, too. When she had walked into the caves of Ilum she had thought it would be a single crystal that she’d have to fight for, willing the Force to give her a weapon. But she’d meditated as Luke instructed, repressing her distaste for the practice, and felt herself being pulled in two different directions. Y/N followed both paths and found two crystals that felt…right. Luke had only smiled when she’d appeared out of the cave with her gloved hands carefully cradling the pair. “Now, what color is yours? Show me, show me.” 

Ben fought a smile before twirled the hilt of his weapon in his hand and settled into a stance as if ready for combat. His lightsaber ignited and a brilliant blue blade appeared.

“I knew yours would be blue!” She laughed and watched him step through a few moves they’d been taught in the temple. He was a natural. Ben eventually stopped, still smiling, and waved Y/N on. 

She smiled and held out her twin hilts before igniting them. The blades hummed. 

“White?” Ben asked as he stepped to her side and looked over the weapons with a curious gaze. “Uncle…Master Luke said the padawans of the old Order would train with white lightsabers—they were supposed to be non-lethal. Almost like toys.” The ones they trained with at the temple were a muted orange and stung when touched to their skin. 

Y/N hummed and then quickly pivoted, arcing a point of her blade down toward Ben. He ignited his own lightsaber and blue clashed against white. “Tell me, Ben. Do you think it feels safe?” 

Ben’s young face was scrunched with effort as her blade pushed against his own, pressing it closer to his shoulder despite his attempt to push back. “What are you doing?!”

“Fight back, Ben. Your Uncle Luke isn’t here to stop you. The galaxy will not stop when someone yells ‘yield!’ Your enemies will be bigger than you. Fight back!” 

Ben gritted his teeth, grip tightening on his hilt. “Fine.” 

Y/N was suddenly flung back, smacking against the side of Ben’s small hut. She slumped to the long grass as her lightsabers deactivated. 

“I-uh-” Panic washed over his features. 

Y/N only smiled and stood back up. Her lightsabers soon hummed with life again as she sprinted toward him. 

This would be fun. 

The pair sparred for as long as their body would let them—and then pressed on. Sweat had soaked their robes and dripped down their noses as their blades continued to clash even as their bodies screamed for rest. Y/N’s lightsabers were proven to be just as dangerous as any other—scorched earth and singed robes could attest. Nearly severing limbs or brutally injuring one another had only made them laugh as the pair finally collapsed onto the grass. 

A gentle coo pulled their attention and the Child waddled toward them. 

“Hey, buddy,” Ben said softly, pulling the smaller boy into his arms as he reached his side. “Feel left out?” A little green hand pressed against Ben’s cheek and he froze for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. I think she’s sad, too.” The pair then pointedly looked at Y/N. 

“You two are just the worst, you know.” 

**

He briefly wondered if all Alderaanian women were this intense or just Organa and Cara. Meeting Organa at her personal apartment was unnerving enough but apparently he’d also been ushered in at the height of some sort of domestic spat. The argument was loud and he could hear all of it even as he stood in the entry way and they were somewhere within the further reaches of the apartment. One voice was distinctly Organa. The other was male and just as belligerent. 

“You sent him away!” 

“You refused to speak to him. You are his father-”

“I just needed time! I don’t know how any of this stuff works. That comes from your side of the family-”

“Don’t blame this on me!”

He sighed and watched a cleaning droid shuffle by and beep as it went down the hall. It was obvious that they were speaking about Ben—the little princely kid. 

“You could at least visit him, Han. Luke would let you-”

“He doesn’t want to see me.” 

“He is your son! All he wanted was to be a smuggler like you, to know you, spend time with you. That’s all Ben wanted and you wouldn’t even look at him after he-”

“I made a mistake. I know that, Leia. But by the time I wanted to talk to him you had sent him off with Luke.” 

He turned and looked at the abstract art on the wall. It was ugly. The argument continued and the Mandalorian really tried not to hear what they were saying. It wasn’t his business. But words still pressed against his ears. And, as his traitorous mind often did, his thoughts turned to Y/N. Y/N and her parents who abandoned her in Hutt Space. Y/N and her twitchy fingers that always left a mess. Y/N and her smile that made his chest hurt. Should he go visit-

Kriff. He was a mess. 

“Just go see him,” Leia said. She sighed and the Mandalorian could almost feel her exhaustion. “Kriff! I’m supposed to be meeting with a bounty hunter.” 

“A bounty hunter? Leia, what is going on?!” 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

As he heard the pair’s approaching footsteps, he readied himself to pretend to ignore the obvious tension and just get his next job. Easy. Right?

**

Ben was having nightmares again. He had just celebrated his fourteenth birthday and his mother had visited again. The visit had left him sullen and Luke had pulled Y/N aside as she watched Senator Organa’s starship leave. Luke was dazed, it seemed.

“Control your thoughts, Y/N.” 

“What?” 

A shaking hand pressed against her cheek. “You are projecting, Y/N.” His breath was uneven.

“What is it?” Y/N asked half-listening, eyes still glancing to the side to watch the ship engage hyperdrive. When it finally disappeared, she felt herself relax and she could finally focus on the Jedi in front of her. As she looked into his blue eyes, his shoulders slumped in relief. “Luke?” 

“Stars, Y/N.” His other hand reached up to hold her face. “Has that been inside you all along?” 

She frowned. “What? What happened?” 

“Darkness. Such… _darkness_.” 

Y/N pulled out of his grip as if he’d slapped her. 

Luke’s hands continued to shake as he looked at her. “Tell me. Tell me what you were thinking.” 

“I-I…I just don’t like when Ben… I don’t like when Ben feels alone.” She felt her own shoulders slump and she twisted her hands into her robes to relieve the strange tension she felt coiling beneath her muscles. Something was changing. 

“Go. Go to Ben, then,” Luke near-pleaded.

Y/N did as she was told and found Ben sitting on his usually spot of grass on the cliff-side, watching the black waves beat against the rock. Her Starchild was already beside him, happily cooing and waving his arms about. Visions of Ben’s nightmares flashed in her mind as she neared him, knowing what he had seen night after night. Seeing the young girl in her dreams was now a reprieve compared to sharing the terrors Ben was having. He was left tired and antsy, with large, dark bags under his brown eyes. The visit from his mother had done nothing to quell the storm inside him.

Y/N tried to be quiet tonight as she settled beside him. Really. But maybe the conversation with Luke had shaken something. Y/N looked at the young man beside her, feeling his warring emotions. Darkness rising and light to meet it. She could feel the hatred he had for himself and his own thoughts. Her eyes were pulled to the green child, happily letting dozens of rocks float around him as he waved his small hands. “You know, that kid adores you.” 

Ben turned his head and glanced at him. An answering nonsensical babble and coo made Ben smile. “Yeah. Maybe.” 

“No, really. The only other time I see him that happy is when his dad visits. You and the Mandalorian are the two people in the galaxy who truly make that little guy smile.”

Ben didn’t say anything for a moment and then, “he likes you, too.” 

Y/N bit her lip, wishing she had better “people” skills. But something had moved; Luke’s confirmation that there was something dark inside her only made it more apparent that her Little Prince needed help. “I know you’re fighting something, Ben.” As the young man stood and started to walk away, face contorting into a grimace, she pushed forward and turned to look at him. “I know you can feel it in me, too. That darkness you’re fighting so hard against. That is what makes you good, Ben. You’re choosing something light—good. It’s hard and a struggle every day. Every kriffing day hurts, sometimes. But you’re good.” Y/N let out a breath as Ben stopped walking. But he hadn’t turned back around. Not yet. “I’ve seen our little green friend definitely use The Force for personal gain, instinctively—something Luke has said is the Dark Side manifesting itself. I won’t insult you and ask if you think he’s dark or evil. But I know you sensed my struggle—it’s the one thing anyone can feel from me, apparently. Our Force signatures are the same, Ben. Do you think I’m evil?” 

He turned back to her with a frown. “No.” He paused and she patted the spot in the grass next to her and he took the offered seat. “But, you can be a little mean,” Ben said, fighting a goofy smile.

Y/N nudged his shoulder with a scoff and hid a smile of her own. “So rude, Little Prince.”

“But you’re not evil.” 

“And you aren’t either, kid. So, I think we need to stick together. Our little secret.” 

Days melted into nights melted into weeks.

Luke avoided her eye-line in ways that would have made her laugh if she wasn’t so confused. But she continued her training and then the extra “tasks” Luke required of her. She would face dozens of training droids alone in the shadows of the temple when everyone else was asleep. The number increased by the night until she was sure they numbered close to one hundred. She would barely see the traces of the rising sun before she finally beat the last droid from the air. Luke would only hum from his hiding spot in the shadows and let her sleep for a few hours before calling her back out to the temple to rejoin the group. 

Ben asked what was going on. She didn’t know. 

But Y/N was tired and confused and just wanted to know what was happening. But Luke disappeared every time she almost approached him. Ben and her Starchild were really her only solace in the three weeks Luke had started these strange practices. Their time together was short for obvious reasons but she reveled a little more in their laughter and smiles when she had the chance. 

On the twenty-third day of her solo training, she was summoned to the temple once again. Fully expecting there to be a fleet of more training droids, she was confused to see the entire floor of the main room was covered with thousands of pieces of scrap durasteel. She couldn’t see the grey stone through the mess. 

“Luke? What is going on?” Y/N craned her head to try to find Luke between the pillars or hiding in the shadows with no success. 

“Find the microvalve from the cooling system of the Naboo NB-1T Royal Bomber.” 

“Seriously?!” She yelled out. Her outburst echoed in the temple, shouting back at her like a teasing specter. When Luke didn’t answer, she sighed and started to step into the room, feeling the crunch of the pieces beneath her shoes as she looked for the piece of durasteel that could fit on the tip of her thumb. 

“Stop!” Luke commanded. A frustrated sigh soon followed. “Meditate, Padawan. Find it through the Force.” 

Y/N resisted the urge to roll her eyes and created a small clearing in the scrap before she settled on the stone and closed her eyes. Picturing the tiny part was the easiest step in this process. Meditation was never her strong suit and Y/N was sure it never would be. Half a thought crossed her mind that this was some sort of terrible, convoluted punishment that Luke conjured to deal with the ‘darkness’ he’d felt nearly a complete lunar cycle earlier. 

Whatever.

She sat there in the dark of the temple and meditated. For a while, it didn’t do anything. There was nothing but black filling her mind’s eye. But she tried a little harder, probably scrunching her face up into a hilarious frown, and concentrated on the hidden ship part. The room suddenly came to life, glittering with blue light in her mind and each piece glistened with a different shade. The vision zipped from one piece to another to another as she continued to focus until it settled on the single blip of white light, tucked between gears and pieces of an old Rigger-class freighter’s hyperdrive system. 

Y/N held up a hand and called the microvalve to her and only opened her eyes when she felt it place itself in her palm. Her shoulders sagged with relief but quickly went back up about her ears when she noticed that it was now daylight. It had taken her that long? 

Luke stepped out of the shadows with a small smile. “I’m very proud of you, Y/N.” 

She threw the microvalve at him and he caught it with ease as she pushed herself up to her feet with a wince. “Is there a reason I’m not allowed to sleep lately or…?” 

With a wave of his hand, Luke cleared a path through the scrap to stand in front of her, small smile unchanging. Y/N rubbed at her eyes as the exhaustion quickly settled in and she tried not to yawn directly into his face. 

But then she was stepping back as Luke brandished his lightsaber and ignited it, green blade lighting his face. 

“Lu-”

His calloused hand reached out and grabbed her small padawan braid with a movement that she almost didn’t notice. And then he was holding her severed braid out to her with a happy sort of sigh. The heat of his lightsaber barely registered against her neck, delayed and terrifying, before she saw him holstering the weapon. “You’ve passed every test. Every trial. Most you have overcome before you even came here.” He placed the braid in her hand and curled her fingers over it. “I wish the Force had been kinder to you. That you had known its warmth instead of its wrath and ruin.” 

“I-I don’t understand…” Something was pressing against her throat. It might have been tears, she wasn’t sure. 

“You are no longer a padawan. I’ve seen you harness your power in amazing ways. Your darkness is part of you but not all of you. A balance. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.” He squeezed her hand, making sure she held her braid. “But I have given up on trying to teach you to meditate correctly.” Luke chuckled and stepped just a fraction closer. “You’ve earned the rank of Jedi Knight, Y/N.”

The grip on her braid started to shake. “What?” 

Luke drew her close and pressed his forehead against hers and she hated the strange flip that her heart did within the confines of her ribs. “Your path is shadowed from me. I cannot walk it with you. The Force will guide you, wherever you go.” 

And then her heart dropped. She knew what this was. “You’re making me leave.” Y/N stepped back and ignored how Luke reached for her again. 

“You can always return to the temple, Y/N. It was always be a haven for you, for anyone like you. Force sensitives.” Luke sighed. “But I need you out in the Galaxy. The Galaxy—it is still healing. We can help it, shape it-”

“I am one person. One Jedi—and a terrible one at that. What can I possibly do?” 

When Luke reached for Y/N again, she let him curl his fingers around her shoulders. “You can do everything.”

**

He wasn’t sure what he was doing, really, when he changed course toward the hidden planet instead of continuing toward Nevarro to meet with Greef and Cara. He’d just dropped off the “special” bounty with Organa and was supposed to deliver the 8 other carbonite-encased bounties with the Guild. Instead, he was walking out onto the grass and watching the kids swing around their laser-swords. It reminded him, in a strange way, of his childhood in the training camps of Mandalore. This, however, seemed much softer, obviously.

But the sentiment was the same. 

The little princely kid spotted him and jogged over. “He’s in in the temple right now. Want me to grab him for you?” 

“No. Thank you.” 

The kid nodded but then looked at him. “She’s not here.” 

“What?” 

“Y/N. She isn’t here anymore.”

**

Across the galaxy, Y/N dodged blaster fire and dove behind the broken remnants of the bazaar's stalls. The wound on her side pulled and soaked her tunic with a fresh wave of crimson.

"Come out, come out wherever you are, Jedi." The Stormtrooper's voice was teasing, even behind his helmet. She could hear his boots crunching against the sand just on the other side of her hiding place. 

"Find her!" Another man commanded.

"Yes, Moff Gideon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the love on the last chapter. I'm not a huge fan of how this chapter turned out, but I needed to post it and get it out. Please let me know what you think. It keeps me motivated. xx


	7. The Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait. I hope you all still like this little story of mine.

It had been three months since he had learned that Y/N left the hidden temple. He tried to look for her at every planet he was sent to, every port he landed on, everywhere. 

But she wasn’t there. 

Luke had given him little insight. “ _She’s gone to find her dream_.” 

Did all Jedi speak in riddles or did he only strive to infuriate the Mandalorian? A question for the ages. 

If anything, Mando thought Y/N would rather forget her dreams. From what he could remember, her dreams were rarely pleasant. But maybe, after living among other Jedi, her dreams stopped being a plague on her mind. Maybe he had actually done the right thing by Y/N despite his constant thought that he’d betrayed her in some way. 

He could still hear her phantom laughter when the Crest was hitting hyperdrive. The scent of her expensive perfume, that she insisted on wearing despite the rough and tumble nature of his profession, lingered just enough to torment him if he turned a corner fast enough. It almost felt like she was hiding in the shadows of the ship. Just out of reach.

And yes, he realized how insane that sounded. Luckily, he didn’t say it out loud. 

But Cara kriffing Dune was always a little more astute than anyone gave her credit for. When he arrived to drop off more bounties and cash in with Karga, her dark eyes narrowed on him. “What’s wrong with you?”

He resisted the urge to look down to see if any of his armor or leather strappings had gone askew and didn’t answer. 

Cara groaned. “Where is that partner of yours? I haven’t seen her in a while.” 

“She’s gone.”

“I knew it!” Cara crowed. “I knew there was something going on.” 

“Nothing was going on.”

“And that was the problem, wasn’t it?” A victorious smile started to spread across her lips. 

“No.” 

“Stars. You are a terrible liar.” Cara sighed and shifted her stance to place her hands on her hips. “Gimme a minute. Let me see if I can dig something up for you.” She then turned and walked back into the main room of the cantina, leaving Mando behind in the small side-room she’d wrangled him into right after he’d arrived, cursing her entire existence in the sanctity of his mind. 

He should have left. Should have just took the back door out into the swirling sands of Nevarro and _left_. 

But he waited, half hoping that Cara would actually know something. He never really bothered with listening to the rabble of other hunters but Cara had a certain sort of charm about her that made almost everyone give her the information she needed. (By charm, he definitely meant that everyone was scared of her.) 

And it didn’t take long for her to come strolling back in, lips pursed just slightly. 

“What is it?” 

Cara pulled something from her pocket and handed it to him. 

He looked at it and felt something twist in his chest. The durasteel was dented and blackened and the tiniest fragments of crystal sat in the depths of it hold. It was the busted end of a lightsaber hilt. 

“Who had it?” He asked as his fingers curled around it.

Cara held up her hands, taking a half step between him and the door. “He found it. And if you spoke to him you’d know that he had no way of taking her down.” 

“Who had it?” He asked again. 

“He found it on Tatooine. In the Dune Sea near some abandoned moisture farm.” Cara crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s a kid, Mando. He got lucky taking down some Imp and Greef brought him into the Guild. He won’t last a cycle.”

He turned the busted durasteel over and over in his hand before he pocketed it. “I have to go.” 

“Of course you do. Tell Y/N I said hi.”

**

_“I need her alive!” The man yelled as he pushed the dark blade against hers. “The Order needs her breathing.”_

Her eyes snapped open as a shuddering breath tore out of her throat. She sat up and wiped a shaking hand down her sweaty face, flashes of the nightmare still flashing behind her eyes—or should she simply call it a memory? 

It had been a handful of cycles since she’d managed to evade Moff Gideon on Tatooine. Six dead Stormtroopers and the loss of one of her lightsabers and she’d **lived**. She lived through it and gained very little. She was sure it was not the last time she would see the Moff. The fact that he wanted her alive was enough to give credence to that thought. 

Her room was dark except for the stars streaking by the viewports and she didn’t bother turning the lights on as she stood and padded over, watching the bright lights move. The stars had become a comfort for her in the past few months. The constellations changed as did the mythology behind them, but she could always find a strange bit of peace if she simply looked up. Her heart calmed. Her sweat cooled. The stars continued to shine. 

But light suddenly flooded the room and a large shadow loomed. 

Y/N turned to see K-4SO duck into the room. “Your heartbeat was racing.” 

“I told you to stop monitoring that.” 

“No.” 

Y/N rolled her eyes and waved a hand to turn on the lights. The KX-series droid had the imperial insignias on the shoulder plates hastily scratched off and covered by blobs of silver paint. Y/N discovered the large droid in a scrap yard on the pirate-hive planet of Ladarra and might have messed up along the way when she was elbow-deep in wires and circuit boards as she tried her hand at reprogramming because was K-4 was the most sarcastic droid she had ever encountered. But K-4 and the handful of other droids she’d filled her too-large ship with were really her only companions. Her holo-calls with Ben were few and far between out of fear of the temple being discovered—but it always made her heart sing. And sometimes he would pick up her Starchild so she could look at him and hear his familiar coo and laugh when he recognized her in the blue feed. It was her favorite view in the entire galaxy.

Not that she didn’t always look for the shine of beskar on every planet she docked at. She found another Mandalorian on Er'Kit, red sand staining his tunic. The build was wrong. Too broad to be her Mando. Too tall. So, she kept to the shadows to keep her own scrap of beskar unseen by someone she didn’t know—someone who could try to take it from her. (And the girl wasn’t on Er’Kit either.)

“We’re approaching Nevarro. Vee says we’ll avoid the lava flats but is mildly insulted that you would imply that we would land anywhere but near the small outpost.” 

Y/N laughed, knowing how easily disrespected her pilot droid was. “You’re right. I’ll apologize later.” 

“There is an eleven-point-two percent probability that the girl you are looking for is here.” The percentages that Kay gave Y/N were never high. It had been months since they started out and they never went over twenty-three percent.

She sighed. “Thanks for that, Kay.” 

“But there is a forty-seven percent probability that the hostiles on this planet will engage us in combat.” 

“Does ‘hostiles’ mean the Bounty Hunter Guild or the weird winged-beasts that like to snatch people right off the sand?” 

The droid paused. “Both.” 

“I saved you from the scrap yard to be helpful, Kay,” Y/N said as she walked over to her ‘fresher and stepped inside. 

“I am helpful.” 

Y/N hummed, fighting a smile, and shut the door. When she emerged a few minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in sweat-free clothes, Kay was still waiting for her. Like a parent waiting to scold a wayward teenager. 

“The probability that the hostiles will engage us in combat is now sixty-three percent.” 

“Why the change?” Y/N asked, pulling her holster off one of the tables and fastening it around her waist, letting the hilt of her remaining lightsaber slap against her thigh.

“There are reports of a fight at the outpost.” 

She grabbed her T-7 Rifle and slung it over her shoulder, too. Just in case. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” 

If droids could sigh, K4 would have in that moment. “We’ll land in a few minutes. I’ve told the IG units to listen for our signal.” 

“Oh, so, you’re coming with me?” Y/N asked, eyeing the droid with a smirk. 

“Of course I am coming with you. Last time I left you alone, you were shot.” 

“Just once.” 

“I’m coming with you.” 

And, there really was no arguing with her droid. 

The yacht landed smoothly, as it always did, as Y/N was checking the comm lines with her four IG units, making sure they could all hear each other, just in case. There had been a scuffle on Geonosis and the comm line hadn’t been calibrated correctly so she had to fight her way out with absolutely no back up. The IGs were all salvages, too, just like K4. Two of them were missing a limb. Most of them had a limp or a shake of some sort, but they were all still very deadly and Y/N trusted them implicitly to keep her (and her ship) safe. But she very rarely had them leave the yacht as they drew too much attention and she, for some reason, wanted to keep them unharmed. 

The door opened and she was greeted with the familiar sight and dry heat of Nevarro and she tried not to grimace when the memories came rushing back. The last time she’d been her had been with—you know what? It didn’t matter. That had been her mantra over the last few months. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want her. It didn’t matter that she’d been abandoned again. It didn’t matter that she ached. It didn’t matter because he didn’t want her. 

She squared her shoulders and felt her boots sink into the black and tan sand as she set off toward the outpost. Kay dutifully walked at her side. The locals didn’t really pay her much mind—they were more interested in K4 or the strange weapon on her hip. There were a few more vendors in the market than there had been last time. More people, too. It seemed like it was finally finding its footing again—long after the visit from the Imps all that time ago.

But she quickly found herself more than a little frustrated and discouraged as every person she encountered said they hadn’t seen a little girl that match the description Y/N gave.  
While Y/N had the little girl’s face burned into her retinas, no one else seemed to know she existed. She could basically hear Luke saying that if she had learned how to properly meditate, she’d probably already know where the little girl was located. Ugh. She was a terrible Jedi, wasn’t she?

“I told you-”

“If you tell me the percentages again, I’m going to scramble your circuits,” Y/N grumbled as she leaned against the warmed stone of a building, chewing through the last bit of Ahrisa and Haroun bread she’d found at one of the market’s stalls. “Anyway, we haven’t even seen one Bounty Hunter. Maybe you need to work on your statistics.” 

Kay balked. “My analytics are flawless-”

A sudden scuffle caught their attention, two bodies tumbling out of the door a few paces away and then tumbling into the sand. The pair was yelling about something—she caught the words “bounty” and “puck” and “you stole it from me your kriffing-!” before there was a definitive blaster shot and one of them stopped moving. 

Funny. She hadn’t even realized they’d wandered toward the Guild’s cantina. Both Y/N and Kay watched the victor slowly rise to their feet. It was a detached sort of recognition that dawned on her then—she’d met this bounty hunter the last time she was here. Y/N sucked the last remnants of food from her teeth before stepping in front of him. “Hey. Have you seen-”

The absolute horror that colored the man’s features would have been hilarious if she wasn’t so frustrated. “Y-you!” 

“Me,” she said, brows furrowing.

“You?” Kay parroted. “Her?” 

“The Mandalorian is looking for you.” The terror continued to grow and then he was dashing away like a man half-crazed. And maybe he was. 

Y/N could feel Kay looking at her as she watched the man stumble into a cart filled with blaster parts and then continue to sprint away without a care to the angry shopkeep left in his wake.

“How’re the percentages now?” 

“That depends on your next move.” 

Y/N paused. Just for a moment. And then stepped up to the door and it slid open. 

“They just went up.”

**

Cara might actually kill him. He was sure of it.

There was already a fight in the cantina when they’d left the back room and then the unlucky kid who’d found the split hilt of the lightsaber had apparently told almost everyone about the “thing” he’d found and how Cara took it from him. The audacity of youth really was something—he was basically bragging that he found something that ‘the Guild’ needed and were in his debt. And people were actually listening to him. 

Kriff. 

“I bet they’re dead anyway-”

He reached out and grabbed the kid’s shoulder and squeezed before he could really stop himself—not that he wanted to. The conversation quickly stopped. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about where you found this,” he said as he pulled out the hunk of durasteel and kyber.

The color drained from the kid’s face. “L-look Mando-”

“Hey!” Cara boomed and then she was yanking the Mandalorian back by the scruff of his collar and the kid and his audience scattered, more scared of the ex-Shocktrooper than they were the Mandalorian. “You said you were going to go find her,” she said, dropping her hold and letting him turn toward her. 

“I need a lead.” 

He vaguely heard the door opening, betting it was the kid running out into the streets, but then-

“Hello, Mando.” 

His helmet clinked with how quickly he turned his head. And then Cara roared with laughter. He was too overwhelmed by just seeing Y/N to be embarrassed and he watched, a little entranced, as she walked up to him with a small smile. It didn’t quite reach her eyes—she didn’t look any happier than she did at the temple. But she was alive. _Alive._ And she-

The large droid at her back quickly drew his attention. Beady, light-back eyes were pinned on him and he felt his hand clench, wanting a vibroshiv. 

She murmured something lowly in Huttese. 

“It isn’t my fault he’s uncomfortable,” the droid replied and Y/N rolled her eyes.

“Y/N! You’re back!” Greef hollered from across the cantina, drawing more eyes as he stood from his seat and made his way over to their small group. He hugged her as soon as he reached her side, all affable and complimentary tones despite only having met her once. Cara soon followed in greeting her, clapping her on the shoulder with a smile. 

“Aren’t you going to say ‘hi’ to me, Mando?” Y/N asked, the same small smile on her lips. 

He hadn’t even realized he hadn’t said hello to her. Just gaped behind his helmet like an ill-mannered child. “We need to talk.” Perfect.

She huffed. It almost sounded like a laugh. “I guess that will have to do.” She waved a hand over her shoulder as she turned, requesting he follow her. Cara had to nudge him forward to get him to move and he almost stumbled on his way out of the cantina and out into the dry heat of the market. Y/N and her hulking droid meandered through the crowd before turning down a side street and slowing to a stop in a small cutaway in between the dirt-colored buildings. “How can I help you?” She asked. It was absent of any of the warmth he had always associated with her. The months since she had left the temple—since he had seen her—must have changed her. She was well-dressed, her expensive clothes reminiscent of her Jedi robes in shimmersilk and Sullust leather in shades of grey and black. And her small strip of beskar was still tied around her hair. But there were rings around her eyes and there was a slight slump to her posture. 

“I’ve been looking for you.” 

Y/N’s eyebrow quirked at that. “I figured a bounty hunter would be better at finding someone. Not the best in the parsec anymore?” Her teasing smile almost made him sigh behind his helmet. Out of agitation or fondness, he wasn’t sure. “I’ve had things I needed to do… Jedi business. I haven’t stayed docked anywhere for longer than a few standard hours.” 

He wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. It sounded like she was running from something. Maybe she was, if the broken lightsaber hilt was any indication. But then he watched her squint at him as if she were thinking and her mouth twisted to the side—not that he was staring at her mouth! 

“Actually, maybe you could help me. Are you on a job right now?” 

“No. I mean, I’m not. Do you have a puck or a fob?” 

Y/N sighed and then rubbed a hand across her chin. “You see, it is a little more complicated.” 

“Chain code?” He asked, grasping at something, anything to keep her close. Just for a little longer. 

She shook her head. The droid continued to stand immobile at her side and stare him down. Her grimace deepened. “Never mind. Forget it. I’ll find her on my own.” She started to walk away when he reached out. 

The KX droid suddenly grabbed his wrist and pulled him straight off his feet and into the air, dangling him like a piece of dried meat. “Do not touch.” The droid was undeterred by the blaster pointed directly at its face. 

“Put him down, Kay. He can’t hurt me.” 

The droid’s head swiveled to look at him for a moment before the too-long fingers released their grip and the Mandalorian crumpled to the ground.

Y/N looked down at him and almost smiled. “Good luck with everything, Mando. May the Force be with you.” 

“I can help you,” he blurted out as she turned to walk away, thankful for the modulator. And he wasn’t sure why he needed her to stay. 

But the way the sun framed her as it peeked into the alley was nothing sort of beautiful. “It isn’t your fight, Mando.” 

He stood. “It could be.” 

And then Y/N looked at him. Really looked at him. He was half-worried that she was ‘reading’ him like Luke did and he tried to not focus on how he liked her smile as it started to bloom across her lips. 

Y/N murmured something to the droid and it gave him one last look before ambling away in its strange gait and they were left alone in the sun-soaked alley. “I keep having this dream.” Her voice was low as she started. Sad and ashamed. “A little girl screams and screams and screams as her parents are taken away. I see it all the time.” 

“Dreams are just-”

“They’re not just dreams. Not for people like us.” She sighed. “I wish Luke had told me that it was all in my head. Just a recurring dream. But when you have these stupid abilities, apparently one of them is prophetic dreams. Not all of them precise. Not all of them accurate. Not all of them come to fruition. But some of them do.”

He felt something strange clench in his chest. She looked so lost and scared and confused. So unlike the woman he knew her to be. “Well, what are we going to do?” 

Her breath stuttered, like she was trying to hold back tears. “You’ll come with me?” She asked, confirming that he really wanted to help, not believing it.

“Yeah.” 

His reflexes must be something different with her. He should have seen her move. Should have predicted her running and leaping. He should have seen her throwing herself into his arms. Her grip was tight as her arms wrapped around his neck and voice soft as she pressed her cheek to the cold beskar of his helmet. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.” 

His arms instinctively had wrapped around her, too. He was crushing her to him. It wasn’t a soft embrace. Not kind. Not gentle. Even through the helmet he could smell her perfume; blueblossom and fire lilies and some desert musk he’d only ever smelled on Canto Bight before he’d met her. His eyes shuttered behind his helmet as he held her. Nothing, no one, had ever made him feel like this. He knew that now. Accepted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! The next chapter should be up quicker than this one. :) also, I might have a Din x Nightsister!OFC short series in the works. Probably only 3 parts. Would anyone be interested in reading that?


	8. The Hunter

Dropping out of lightspeed jostled Y/N enough to wake her up. Maybe she had become a little too pampered on her own ship. But the Razor Crest did have its charms.

Good memories. 

Y/N stretched and nearly smacked her arm against a jutting container of food rations before she stood. Kay was still in sleep-mode in the corner beside her, eyes dark. Mando had been a little on edge about bringing the former-imperial droid aboard but eventually conceded. Her ship was left in a hangar on Nevarro, guarded by her IG units and ready to jump to lightspeed if her distress signal came through. 

Mando had seemed relieved when Y/N agreed to use his ship instead of hers as they searched for the little girl—his reasoning was something along the lines of fuel costs and a lower risk of someone trying to steal the Crest. She didn’t mind. 

Last night had been the first night in a long time since she hadn’t dreamt of her run-in with Moff Gideon or heard the screams of the broken-hearted girl. Y/N climbed up into the cockpit to see the Mandalorian at the helm and carefully switching gears as they approached yet-another sand-covered planet. She peeked over his shoulder to see the ship’s read out. 

“Pasaana?” 

“I’ve had to track a few bounties here. Hiding in caves and underground tunnels. The locals can spot an outsider easily. If your kid is here, they’ll know.” 

Y/N smiled at his words despite him not turning his head to look at her. He had been quiet since she and Kay boarded with her small pack, only speaking to her to tell her to use his bunk to sleep. 

She didn’t, but the thought was nice. 

There was an odd tension surrounding him. Y/N could feel it pulsing like a heartbeat but she did not pry as she knew she could. Being around him was enough and she almost hated how easily she had wordlessly forgiven him for leaving her. Training with Luke had been beneficial, but it still smacked of abandonment and twisted an old wound. But it did not matter now. 

She settled in ‘her’ chair behind him and braced for landing.

**

Pasaana was probably the most welcoming of the planets Y/N had encountered on her journey and she had marveled at the easy warmth the locals greeted her and Mando with, even when she did not speak the language. Mando did, however, and learned a ship had been docked in Lurch Canyon for over five years but the crew had not been spotted.

“It might be worth a look,” he said. 

“Sure.”

“The likelihood that-”

“Not now, Kay,” Y/N laughed, a little more optimistic than she had been in too long. After hiring a pair of speeders, they were off toward Lurch Canyon, Kay precariously perched on the back of hers. 

A rusted, dust-covered ship was balanced on the edge of a cliff—they both spotted it as they crested yet another dune and Y/N, despite experience telling her not to get too hopeful, felt her heart leap. 

It was the same ship she had seen over and over and over again in her dreams—she was sure of it. And she was so focused on the ship on the horizon she nearly collided with Mando’s speeder as it lurched to a stop. 

“What is it?” 

“Sinking fields.” He pointed to the fluid black sands scattered in front of them. 

“They’re Shifting Mires,” Kay corrected. 

“Why didn’t you tell us about them?” Y/N asked, turning her head to glare at the droid. 

“You said ‘not now,’ so-”

“You are the worst!”

Mando got off his speeder and Y/N followed suit. Kay refused to budge. 

“There is no way we can get across on the speeders-”

“Think we can chance it on foot?” Y/N wondered out loud. “There are pathways between…” The words tapered off her tongue into nothing, nervous he would say no. The need to finally feel closer to the girl was overwhelming. 

Mando seemed to think about it for a moment before nodding. “We should start-”

But then Kay was lumbering forward, sand shifting beneath durasteel feet. “I will navigate. I can scan-”

Kay plunged beneath the sand.

**

Mando watched, concerned but unsurprised as Y/N quickly followed her droid beneath the black sand. He unwound his whipcord and attached the end to his speeder and wrapped a bit around his wrist and fist before walking out onto the sand and waiting.

He felt the ground give way beneath his boots and he tightened his grip around the whipcord as it gave out completely and he was pulled underneath. He landed softly and then immediately had to dodge the swing of a glowing white blade. An answering, “oh stars, sorry Mando,” made him sigh. 

“Where’s your droid?” 

“I am here,” the droid answered, rounding a corner of the tunnel, eyes shining in the dim light.

“There’s something down here.” 

“Did you think these tunnels made themselves?” He asked, barely holding back the bite of sarcasm.

Y/N nudged at his shoulder with a grunt. “You are not helping.” 

There was a sudden rumble and a strange, wet noise that had them all spinning to look down another dark tunnel. The biometric scanners of his helmet quickly found something—“run.” And then he was grabbing at her hand and dragging her alongside him, rushing down a different tunnel and they barely made it before something roared and shot by in a rushed slither. 

Y/N was panting. And it took him a moment to realize he had all but crushed her to his chest and was in danger of getting roasted by her lightsaber. Each of her breaths was pushing against the fabric around his neck and he almost shivered when the heat of it soaked against his skin. His grip tightened on her hand, just for a moment, before he let it drop. 

He shouldn’t have pulled her close. Not like that. She wasn’t his to hold. 

Thankfully, she didn’t even notice his action and kept her eyes trained on the retreating…thing with a dazed sort of look “I’m not even going to pretend to know what that was.” She shook herself from her stupor and then glanced at him. She stepped back and swung her lightsaber up to light the tunnel they were in a bit more. And for the second time in just a handful of moments, she said, “there’s something here.” 

“…right.” 

“Oh! Where’s Kay?” 

“You left me behind,” Kay said, lumbering into the tunnel. 

“I’m so sorry-”

“Not you. The Mandalorian.” 

Y/N quickly shushed them both and then slowly walked further into the tunnel, strange weapon held at the ready. He turned to look at her and watched as she moved like a predator—a hunter. She moved like a Mandalorian. It took him a moment to realize he was just staring at her, a little dazed and with a stirring in his stomach that he thought he had not felt in quite a long time. It was the droid knocking into him on its way to follow that finally pushed him out of that strange stupor. He let Y/N lead them further into the dark tunnels, in pursuit of something only she seemed to know. 

She turned down another tunnel and then he heard her push out a tense, “ **You?** ” 

He and the droid looked at each other for just a moment before darting toward her. What they saw quickly stalled their steps. A creature—and there was clearly no other word—was holding a blaster toward Y/N. His too-round eyes were pitch black with robotic implants encircling the rest of his head. The remnants of a crashed speeder were behind him, another bit of carnage of the shifting sands. And Y/N wasn’t scared. Wasn’t nervous. If anything, she looked ready to kill. The tension in her shoulders and back were pulled tight under her tunic. 

Her eyes glanced back at them for just a moment and he saw her lip curl. 

And then the creature noticed them, too. “Two Mandaloriansss?” Its voice was a harsh hiss and grating to his ears. And then it was firing and-

Y/N dodged the creature’s blaster bolt and thrust out a hand. The creature was dragged by some invisible force right into her grip, fingers wrapping around the skin of its throat. With a flick of her wrist, she’d lopped off its blaster-holding hand and it fell to the sand with a muted ‘thud.’ Y/N was unfazed by the screaming and continued to hold the creature up by its throat, her lightsaber still humming in her other hand. “Tell me where she is.” 

He briefly thought of helping her gain information from the thing. Only briefly. Y/N could handle this on her own.

“Who?” It hissed. 

“The girl. You killed her parents. I watched you do it. Brown hair. Hazel eyes. Tell me where she is.” 

“Ssshe’s gone. Parentss hid her before I found them on Jakku.” 

“What did you want with her?” Her grip tightened as it struggled for a moment. “Tell me. Now.” 

“Ssshe is the heir. The only heir. He wantsss her.”

“The heir for what?”

A rattle came from its throat. It must have been a laugh. “But I could bring him you. You. He needsss you, too.” But then it pulled a knife from its back and moved to plunge it right into her chest when she dropped it and, with a single move, separated its head from its shoulders. The body went one way, the head another. 

It was done in such quick efficiency that Mando had only unholstered his blaster and raised it by the time she was finished. Her chest heaved with deep breaths and she bent at the waist to grab the knife and grimaced as she wrapped her hand around it. Like it had burned her.

“Kay!” The droid came when called and took the knife she handed over. “Keep that safe. Hidden.” 

The glow emitting from her lightsaber was casting her in a soft light against the rough rock of the tunnel. Her chest heaved and heaved and heaved but then her breath evened out and the exertion that had been contorting her features melted away. The hum of her lightsaber disappeared as she deactivated it and reattached the weapon to her hip. The droid quickly brightened the light emitted from its eyes to give her some semblance of light. She turned to the crashed speeder and rifled through its contents before appearing with a datapad. Its screen was shattered but Y/N tucked it into the folds of her tunic like it held some sacred secret. 

And maybe it did. 

“We should go,” she said as she stepped to his side. Her smile was tired but it still made his chest tighten the slightest bit. 

He nodded a bit, knowing it probably looked a bit stilted and turned to let his scanners find a way out. And it took a solid hour of walking, and a few close-calls with the giant worm (again), but the sun eventually shined down on them. 

But all of it was just a partial distraction to how he kept looking at her. How she seemed so pleased, so at ease with the act of decisive violence, and how it all culminated in a pleasant ache in his chest. 

She was Mandalorian.

**

The girl was not on Pasaana. But Y/N decided that was fine because she gained a valuable bit of information by finally finding the creature that had haunted her dreams. The datapad she’d pilfered from the creature’s speeder had a map of the known galaxy on it, various planets marked off. The creature had been searching, too. Planets were marked off and notes had filled the datapad’s memory banks about where it had landed and information it had gathered about the girl they both sought.

But it was also filled with lines like “He must have her.” “He demands his blood.” “The heir needs to be found.” 

But the most alarming of all was the single line at the bottom of the last file. 

“The Order needs its Supreme Leader.” 

It unnerved her. There was too much she still didn’t know about motivations or schemes or anything like that when it came to the little lost girl in her nightmares. But Y/N knew, instinctually, that it was all connected. 

Admittedly, it did help that the term ‘The Order’ kept popping up. 

But what would The Order want with her and the little girl? 

Y/N rubbed at her temples as she heard her Mandalorian quietly step around the ship. They’d left Pasaana as quickly as they could and settled on Christophsis for the moment, a city-planet known for its mining hubs and beautiful, blue crystals. It was a densely populated planet so their arrival would not spark any talk of unplanned visitors. The need for cover was more the Mandalorian’s suggestion than hers, but she didn’t complain. It was nice to not be surrounded by sand for a moment.

He had been…very kind. In his gruff sort of way. He would press food packets into her hands when she would forget to eat as she continued to attempt to piece together the information in the datapad and all the flashes she could remember in her dreams. When she would fall asleep in ‘her’ corner of the ship, datapad still in her grip, she would wake up to find a blanket (that suspiciously looked like one of his capes) draped over her. He also seemed reluctant to take a ‘quick’ job that Karga told him about—some bail jumper who was known to have associates on Christophsis. 

“It’ll be quick money, Mando. I’ve got Kay here. I’ll be fine.” 

But he still lingered on the ramp of the Crest for a moment before he gave a single, short nod and said, “I’ll come back.” He started to walk away but then turned back. “I have my comm linked to the Crest’s system. If you need anything.” 

Y/N felt a smile pressing at her lips before she could stop it, knowing how on edge he must be to even mention it. “Go, Mando. I’ll be here.” 

And he seemed to walk a little too fast away from his ship after she said that. Y/N wasn’t sure if it was in a rush to get back or a rush to get away from her. And she wasn’t sure which she’d prefer. 

It would be easier, she supposed, if he didn’t like her. Eventually her feelings would fade or morph into something else that didn’t leave her with an ache in her chest whenever she simply thought or caught a glance of him. But on the other hand, maybe she could let herself dream that her Mandalorian felt the same. 

And Y/N still slightly resented the fact that the flame she kept burning for him hadn’t snuffed itself out. Even after everything. 

Everything. 

“You have sighed six times in the last two minutes,” Kay said, stepping to her side on the lip of the ramp. “You care for the Mandalorian.” 

“You’re so insightful, Kay,” she muttered, finally turning away and pressing the button to close the ramp before she engaged the security protocols. 

Kay’s metal joints groaned the slightest bit when pivoting to watch her walk around the cargo hold. “His heart rate increases by two beats per minute whenever you are within three feet.” 

Her smile grew. “Two whole beats?” Hers increased much more just at the thought. 

Maybe there was a bit of hope for that stubborn little flame after all.

Either way, he was back just after sundown with a squirming bounty shouting profanities at his back. A quick carbonite bath swiftly ended the noise. 

“That must be a record for you,” she mused. “Six hours?” 

“My record is two and a half.” 

Y/N laughed and waved a hand at the small pile of foodstuffs she had set on a container cover. “I had Kay run into the market for food.” And, knowing he was about to argue, she continued, “Kay was cloaked and unfollowed. Took diversions back to the Crest. I figured you didn’t want me to eat all of your ration bars.” 

He was quiet for just a moment before saying, “you are welcome to anything I have here.” 

And something warm bloomed in her chest at that and she smiled like a child. “Thank you. But you know I like to pull my own weight. Especially since I’m the one dragging you along on this-”

“I know you do,” his husky voice rasped. She ignored the shiver she felt and looked at him. He was immoveable, visor pointed in her direction. “I know you can pull your own weight. But…but you don’t have to all the time.” 

“You wanna take care of me, Mando?” The tease left her lips before she could stop herself. And Y/N instantly regretted it, apology bubbling in her throat. “Sor-”

“I do.” It was a simple statement. Two words said behind a vocoder. And she felt each syllable like it had been battered into her bones. “I do.” 

“Oh,” was all she could say, the sound strangled in her throat. Y/N knew she should say something now. _Say something. Say **anything**._

But then Kay walked in, metal feet slapping against the floor of the Crest. “You’re back. There was a twenty-two-point-three percent chance you were dead.” 

And the moment was gone. 

But Y/N kept replaying it over and over again in her mind, trying to find a scenario where it hadn’t left them quiet for the rest of the evening. They had parted ways right after Kay had come into the cargo hold and had only given each other quiet looks as they busied themselves around the ship (him with calling Karga and her with continuing to go through the creature’s datapad and running probabilities with Kay) until they both called it quits for the night. 

“I want you to take the bunk,” Mando said, as he had every night since they started this adventure. 

“No. I’m happy in my little corner,” Y/N replied, as she did every time he offered. 

And then came his answering sigh and his jerky nod before he turned and went back up to the cockpit, as he usually did when she was starting to get ready to sleep. And Y/N watched him go—as she always did. She watched Kay go into sleep mode as she settled in for the night and hoped to dream of anything other than screaming children and murder. 

_Darkness. That is all there is._

_But Y/N could feel something waiting. Waiting for her. “The power of your bloodline. I have seen very few who can rival you. Raw, untamed power.” The voice croaked. It was too familiar, like it had known her all her life._

_“Stop,” was ripped from her throat. The thing that was waiting for her came closer, she could feel it pressing at her back in the darkness._

_“I can show you the true power of The Force. Anything you want will be yours—greatness, adoration—Fear. No one will leave you again. I can teach you-”_

_“Be quiet!” Her voice broke._

_“All alone. Everyone always leaves you, don’t they? You know he’ll leave again.” There was a terrible, growing laugh that echoed in the darkness. “But I am here. I am always here. Waiting.”_

_“Leave me alone!” Something grasped at her wrist and-_

“It’s me. It’s me.” Someone was whispering to her, fingers carefully grasping at her wrists as she flailed, still fighting some unseen enemy. The cargo hold was pitch black, Y/N noticed as her mind finally cleared. Her heart still hammered in her chest and the cold, invisible fingers of the thing in her dreams slowly retreated. But the grip on her wrists never retreated. Never faltered. “Y/N?” the voice whispered.

“Mando.” It was breathed out like a sigh and she felt her entire body deflate. The reason she couldn’t readily recognize the voice because it was no longer muffled and altered behind his helmet. And if the warmth encircling her wrists was any indication, he had shed most of his other armor, too. 

His hands slowly traveled up her arms, almost hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure where they would land or if it would spook her. “I heard you. You were screaming.” 

“I’m sorry,” Y/N quickly whispered, too afraid to speak any louder. Afraid he might pull away. And she needed him to stay. Stay just for a little while. “I-”

“You don’t have to apologize. Not to me.” His hands found her shoulders and then slid up to softly grasp at the back of her neck. 

Y/N worried he would feel her stuttered breath when she felt him lean a little closer, probably on his knees in front of her half-sitting form. “I didn’t want to wake you up. I know you don’t sleep well.” 

“That makes two of us, then,” he almost joked. His voice sounded like he was smiling. 

Shaking hands landed against a thin tunic and she felt the warmth of him under her palms. Y/N let herself revel in that, for just a moment, before she realized what she was doing and quickly pulled away. But he was fast. His hands caught hers and pressed them back against his chest. “You can touch me. It’s okay.” His thumbs slid across the backs of her hands, slow and steady and beautifully grounding. 

She wanted to ask him why it was okay. Why she was allowed to touch him without the cover of armor if he didn’t need medical attention. Surely his Tribe would balk at the idea. But she didn’t ask. The fact that he had trusted her enough to be this close when he was this unprotected, this vulnerable, was enough.

Instead, her hands slid up his chest to find the back of his head, like they’d traveled that path thousands of times before, and her fingers pushed into the curls she found at the nape of his neck. “Soft,” she murmured, more to herself than him. The scent of soap and leather and blaster oil met her nose and continued to settle her rattled heart. 

But then he was shifting and his hands gently cradled her face and his forehead settled against hers. 

“Oh.” That was all Y/N could say and it was pushed out from between her lips like she’d been punched in the gut. 

“Oh,” he whispered in return. But it sounded a little more confident than hers. A little more sure but still laced with a bit of uncertainty as his thumbs traced against her cheekbones. 

And Y/N wasn’t sure how long they sat there like that, wrapped up in their embrace and breathing in each other’s breath, but she tightened her grip on his delicate curls when he went to pull away. “Don’t…don’t leave me.” 

Mando’s arms dropped to her waist and then he was hauling her close and all-but-manhandling her back into the mess of thin blankets and cheap pillows. The terrible voice from her dream whispered again. _“He’ll leave you.”_ When she expected to feel him pull back, he only settled over her like some sort of blanket, letting his cheek press against her chest. 

“Is this okay?” His voice was soft. 

“Y-yeah,” Y/N’s whispered, voice catching in her throat. “Yeah. It’s okay.”

**

He woke first, thankfully. Hearing Y/N’s screams had all but flushed his training about concealing his identity and safety out of his head and all he could think last night was: get to her. He would never admit that her steady heartbeat had lulled him into the best night’s rest he’d had in years. The scent of her skin, her expensive perfume, lingered on his tunic as he rose and he took a selfish sniff as he once again pulled on his armor, careful not to wake her.

He liked that her scent would linger, like a brand. Before he put his helmet on, he took one last look at her, now helped by the rising sun starting to filter through from the cockpit where he’d raised the safety shields. 

Y/N was…beautiful. 

There was no other word. All sprawled out in her little nest, he had never seen such a wondrous sight and he greedily tried to press it into his mind to keep forever. It was rare he could see anyone like this, without the heat or tracking sensors altering his view. And she was beautiful in the dim sunlight. 

The Keldabe had been greedy, too. Some attempt to show her rather than tell her how he felt. He had never been good with words anyway. But she had been vulnerable last night. It wasn’t right and he’d scolded himself as soon as it happened but didn’t pull away when she let him linger. It had been greed that pushed him to truly know what her skin felt like under his fingers. And it had been greed when he pressed himself against her when she had whispered her plea of “don’t leave” too. But he couldn’t leave her alone, wouldn’t leave her alone, not after he heard her scream like that. He had heard it too many times before he would do anything to keep her from sounding so broken again. 

Anything. 

But he eventually curled his fingers around his helmet and pulled it on again and she was washed in sensors and heat maps once more.

**

Y/N was nearly giddy as she finished scarfing down the last bit of her breakfast. She hadn’t slept that well in ages. It would be a lie to say she wasn’t disappointed to wake up alone, but the lingering warmth of her Mandalorian had been a nice consolation prize.

And for once she felt like she truly saw something. Wreckage of a Star Destroyer cut up the horizon as the little girl tried to pry apart an AT-ST’s wiring harness. And she knew exactly where it was. And it seemed the creature had looked for her on that planet but had been persuaded by her parents that she “wasn’t on Jakku” before he murdered them.

Her parents kept her safe. 

And now she would, too. 

Her Mandalorian, once again quiet, only nodded when she came bouncing up to him to have him set a course to Jakku. 

And that felt right. The quiet. It was just her and him (and Kay) getting ready to travel the galaxy. That was right. 

The hop from Pasaana to their destination didn’t take too long and Y/N had to delicately tell Kay to stay on the ship while they went out. “The sand will get in your joints. I don’t want you to rust or-”

“You want to be alone with your Mandalorian. My joints are fine.” 

“I _am_ worried about sand!” 

She was nearly vibrating with excitement when they landed. Kay was pouting in a corner, resigned to stay on the ship, and Mando walked to her side. Something soft landed on her head and it took Y/N a moment to realize it was a scarf. 

“It’ll keep the sun off your head,” he said, visor tilted just slightly toward her. He only unfurled the ramp after she wrapped it around her face and secured it with a few ties and knots. And she was thankful for it the moment they stepped outside. 

Jakku felt different. Like the sun was baking her within her robs within moments. She wondered how this little girl could survive this, all on her own. 

They’d landed near the largest settlement on the planet, some junker’s paradise called Niima Outpost. It was teeming with scavengers and gangsters alike and most kept their distance when she and the Mandalorian stepped into its sparse shadows. 

“What do you want?” A Crolute Male sneered as they approached the main hub. 

Y/N wasted no time in pushing into the thug’s mind. It was not a pleasant push, more like a battering ram—Luke always said she needed to work on being gentle—and she watched the man flinch as she settled, his beady eyes glazing. “There’s a girl here. Probably around seven. Brown hair. Hazel eyes. Works as a scrapper.” 

A bit of drool slipped out of the side of his gaping mouth. “She lives in an AT-AT in the Goazon Badlands.” 

Y/N pulled back and watched a bit disinterestedly as the Crolute slumped over in his hut. 

“What did you do?” Mando asked. 

“I took what I needed.” Y/N pivoted on her heel with a broad smile on her face. “Let’s go.” 

As they walked back to the Razor Crest, she felt Mando’s question. She didn’t even need to try to read him. 

“Have you…have you ever done that-”

“Never to you, Mando,” she said, almost laughing. “I would never do that to you.” 

A strange sort of noise escaped him and Y/N wasn’t sure if it was a sigh or a choked breath and she was too giddy to question it. “Do you think you’ll find her here?” He asked. 

“I do,” she said, feeling it in her bones. “I do.” The trip into the Badlands was only a handful of minutes and Y/N found herself nearly sprinting when it landed near the toppled AT-AT. There was something calling to her. It felt like she was back in the temple, surrounded by padawans and younglings. 

The Force. 

It all seemed so clear and Y/N felt a bit foolish to just realize it now. 

The little girl who had haunted her dreams was outside, wearing a tarnished Rebel helmet as she ate the last bits of her meager dinner. Y/N’s heart clenched behind her ribs when she could finally lay her eyes on the girl she’d heard screaming and crying for years. Here she was. Just a few feet away. 

When she spotted Y/N approaching, she shot to her feet, wavering between running and hiding. Y/N held up a hand and pulled the scarf from around her face with a small smile. “Hello there.” 

The girl pulled off the helmet with a frown, hazel eyes suspicious. “Who are you?” 

Y/N kept a polite distance. “I’m Y/N,” she said before turning to gesture toward the Mandalorian who stayed several steps back. “This is my friend…you can call him Mando.” 

“A Mandalorian.” 

“He is. He’s helped me find you.” 

The little girl’s face continued to pull into a frown, little eyes glancing between the Mandalorian and Y/N. “I’ve seen you before.” 

“In your dreams?” 

“How did you know?” 

“Because I’ve dreamed of you, too.” She paused and then tried to remember some of the Teedo-speak she heard her learning. “ _You like nightblossoms. Keep them near your bed. Right?_ ” 

Little hazel eyes grew wide. “It is you.” 

“It’s me,” Y/N said, tears starting to rise in the back of her throat. She held out a hand toward the girl. “What’s your name?” 

“I’m Rey.” It was said with a small, hopeful smile and she placed her dirty little hand in Y/N’s and squeezed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait but quite a bit of the next chapter is already written so I'm hoping to have it up soon. Thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments. It really means the world to me and keeps me motivated. I'd like to get this series finished (and my upcoming Nightsister mini series) done before the second season premiers. But are there scenes you all would like to see? What are your predictions? I love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading! xx


	9. The Jetii

He watched Y/N smile as the little girl led her toward the toppled AT-AT. Rey was babbling about all she learned while she was ‘waiting for you!’ and how she was so excited to finally meet her. Just before they reached the hatch to the durasteel beast’s belly, the girl turned and smiled in the sun. “Come on, Mister Mando!” 

Y/N tried to hide her smile in her scarf but he could still see it as he pushed forward, boots sinking in the sand again. He had to duck his head in order to get into the AT-AT’s hollowed out core but still hit his helmet against the hatch’s paneling. While Rey continued to tell Y/N everything she’d learned, his eye was drawn to one of the walls. It had tiny scratches all over it in perfectly straight rows. He instantly knew what it was—a marker of days. She had been here, on this backwoods sinkhole of a planet for too long. 

Alone. 

He heard Y/N laugh and his entire chest clenched as he watched Y/N let Rey show her all of her beloved keepsakes and the stories behind them. And then he understood: Y/N saw herself in Rey. A little girl, left alone in the galaxy, with a power he would never understand. The dreams Y/N had, echoed by little Rey, only gave him more proof that the little girl was Force Sensitive, too. 

And Y/N was so gentle with her. So kind. He had nearly felt the relief and joy she exuded when she set eyes on the girl she had been searching the galaxy for. 

But there was something else. Something ashamedly primal turned his stomach when he watched Y/N reach out and carefully adjust Rey’s top bun so it sat straight atop her head. It was the same feeling he had when he watched her carry his Foundling in the blue light of the Jedi Temple. Mando knew instinctively what his body, heart, and soul were craving when he witnessed the scene. 

With Y/N. He craved these unspoken, unspeakable things with _her_. 

“Come look,” Y/N said, waving him over. A dried flower was in her gentle grasp and she held it out to him like a golden trophy. “ ’s a Nightbloomer. Rey says they’re rare.” 

“I’ve only found four,” Rey said with a small smile. “That one’s the prettiest.” 

He hummed behind his helmet as he looked at the (ugly) flower but Y/N and Rey’s matching smiles might have made him find a little bit of wonder in its crumpled petals. 

But then he watched Y/N’s head snap to the side, staring out the still open hatch. Her smile had vanished. Y/N pushed up to her feet and clamored back out of the hatch and into the sun. Rey quickly followed. And he was stuck there for a moment, more than a little confused as to what had just transpired, but then followed the pair out. The scream of a TIE greeted him before the heat of the sun. A row of Stormtroopers lined the horizon. Nearly thirty of them. All with blasters at the ready and in front of the Razor Crest. A strange, red-banded TIE was sat next to a troop transport.

He wanted to move forward but his feet were stuck to the sand. 

Y/N gave him a look and shook her head just once before she pivoted and kneeled down to Rey’s level. “Don’t look at them. Look at me, okay?” Her smile was tight and unnatural. “We are going to get you out of here.” But then her eyes struck Mando as they turned to him. “I’ll hold them off. I need you to get her to Luke.”

“We have unfinished business.”

**

Y/N stiffened as she heard the familiar low drawl. But she still smiled at Rey who looked scared—scared like she had so many times in her nightmares. “It’ll be okay, little sun.” She sucked in a breath. “Go with Mando. He’ll keep you safe.” She nudged Rey toward Mando, smile starting to waver. She watched as Mando pulled Rey into his arms and let her little legs wrap around his waist like it was instinct. Her heart hurt.

It had been glaringly obvious that he was a natural with children—a little emotionally stunted, sure. But he cared deeply for little ones. His Foundling, her Starchild, was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Children were nearly sacred in Mandalorian culture. Loved and treasured. 

The vows she would never speak seemed to echo cruelly in her mind then as she watched Mando tighten his arms around the child in his grip. _We will raise warriors._ But now was not the time to think of that.

“Nothing to say?” 

Y/N then turned and stepped in front of her mandalorian, blocking them from Moff Gideon’s sight. The hideous wound she had left him with was had faded to a twisted scar across his face, leaving his left eye milky. “You have come a long way to die in the sand, Gideon.” 

His scarred face contorted in rage—but only for a moment before being schooled back into indifference. “I think you have found that I am hard to kill.” 

Y/N pulled her saber from its hilt but didn’t ignite it, letting it hang in her grip like a silent threat. “Just as you have found me.” 

“I never meant to kill you. You are valuable. The First Order needs you.” His mismatched eyes trailed to Mando who turned Rey’s head so her face was hidden in his neck. “It seems you still never know when to stop.” 

“I thought you were dead.” 

“Did your Jedi not tell you?” The Moff thrust out his arms. “I have risen from the ashes of your attempt on my life, just as the First Order has risen from the ashes of the Empire. I am alive and well.” 

Y/N watched one of Mando’s hands start to slide toward one of his blasters and shook her head again. _“Get out of here,”_ she said in Mando’a. For his ears only. Her thumb found the lightsaber’s activator and the weapon hummed with life. 

“I need her alive!” Gideon commanded as the troopers’ blasters started to hum. “And bring me the girl.” 

Y/N deflected the first blaster bolt with her saber and felt her teeth grind, something cold tightening in her gut as she watched the bolt strike another Trooper in the chest. She barely noticed Mando turning to shield Rey with his body as the Troopers stepped closer with another handful of shots. They were easily repelled. Gideon’s order of taking them alive must have made the soldiers cautious. 

A mistake. 

Y/N shoved out her hands and let the familiar push wash over her. Some screamed, some let out a barrage of curses as the troopers were hurled into the air and then shoved to the side, landing on the sunbaked sand and the crunch of their armor followed. A handful Troopers she couldn’t reach on her own were leveled by the flailing limbs of their brothers-in-arms. 

“I told you to go!” Y/N yelled as she rounded on Mando, ducking as another bolt was aimed at her shoulder. They hurried behind one of the legs of the AT-AT, allowing them coverage for at least a moment.

“I’m not leaving you behind. Not again.” 

She could have kissed him them. Tears stung at her eyes as she placed a hand against his cuirass and pushed the slightest bit. “Go.” The single word warbled on her tongue. “A Foundling is in your care.” 

He didn’t move. 

Little Rey hid her face against his neck as more blaster bolts bounced off the hull of the AT-AT.

“Go. Your Creed commands it. Protect her. Protect her for me. Tell Luke I—Tell Luke she’s important.” The tears won the battle and started to slide down her cheeks. “Please. Just go, Mando. I’ll clear a path and you need to get out of here.” 

“My name is Din.” 

“Of course you tell me now,” Y/N said, half in love, half enraged. She thought someone of his caliber would have a little more self-preservation. “Go! Just go!” And then she leapt over the leg, saber ignited and cut down the nearest trooper before throwing a blaster bolt back at another. “Move!” Again, she pushed at the line of troopers, sending them flying into the air. 

“Impressive,” Gideon sneered, adjusting his gloves. Who needs gloves in a kriffing desert?! “It seems you have grown stronger since the time we last met.” Y/N pivoted to shove the whole of her lightsaber through the chest of a trooper who had evaded her push. The body fell to the sand with a hiss. “He will be most pleased.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Din and Rey make it to the Crest and tumble inside. He picked off a pair of troopers who had tried to clamor in behind him and quickly shut the ramp. But Y/N knew they’d need more time to get off the ground. And she needed to provide it. 

Y/N pushed out a single short breath and then charged at Moff Gideon. The last handful of troopers stepped in line to be cut down and the Moff only took a single step back as she approached. 

Y/N swung the lightsaber at him and he dodged and his hand slipped behind his stupid cape to his back. Another swing had him rolling against the sand and she could hear the roar of the Crest’s ships engines—it was music to her ears—but Gideon stood straight and held a lightsaber of his own. The blade was dark, darker than night and seemed to drain the light around it. 

Y/N knew instantly what it was—the Darksaber. 

With a snarl, Y/N drew back and then turned, arcing her lightsaber down toward his head. Gideon parried and pivoted, pushing her blade back. Her feet shifted in the sand for just a moment before she pushed forward again and twisted the saber in her grip to catch his shoulder. His armor burned and melted, pouring inky black smoke into the air. “You should have tried your blaster. This weapon doesn’t suit you.” A quick cut to his leg had him stumbling and slumping into the sand with a grunt as she turned and pushed the lone advancing Trooper at her back into the sand. She could deal with him later. 

The Darksaber had slipped from Gideon’s grip and she bent and took it before he could grasp it again and glanced up as the Razor Crest started to rise.

The Moff looked up at her with a sneer. “The Order will have its due. You cannot run forever. We will find you. All of you.” 

Y/N ignited the Darksaber and took another step toward him. She held both blades out, crossing them against his neck. And for a moment, just a moment, she admired the black blade against the white. “I’m very good at running.” And then she took his head. 

Y/N thought it was finished then. She had kept Din and Rey safe. 

But then the TIE was screaming as it soared into the air in pursuit of the old ship. In a panic, Y/N dropped both lightsabers and thrust out her hand and felt it wrap around the advancing TIE. The ship screamed and screamed as its thrusters tried to pull from her invisible grasp. She watched the Razor Crest fly higher and her heart was almost lighter at the sight. They would escape. They would live. 

But then terrible red bolts fired and clipped one of the Crest’s engines—a last ditch effort to ground them. The hulking mass of durasteel started to waver in the sky.

She couldn’t stop it then—a simmering rage and fear and sadness erupted. It shot from her fingertips with a scream of her own and lighting shot across the sky to spear the black helm of the TIE. A resounding crack! followed and the Order’s ship exploded, residual currents trailing across the pieces in a terrible, splintering white light.

A familiar chill settled in her bones as she watched the remains fall: the carnage complete. 

The boom of the Crest hitting lightspeed barely registered to her buzzing brain but she watched it disappear as her knees hit the sand. 

Was it worth it? Was that terrible darkness worth it? Was it? 

It was.

**

The engine would hold until he made it out of this system. Y/N’s repairs on it had kept them airborne and the hyperdrive intact.

And he had…left her there. On that desolate planet. But Din could not think of that now. Not when Rey was still in his care. Thankfully, however, the young girl seemed to be unflappable and resilient, not acting like she’d just been caught in a firefight and was buzzing around the ship, wondering at its construction and sometimes mentioning as to how much Unkar Plutt would give her if she had found this part or that. Apparently Rey had found value in his ship, too. 

But all he could think of was Y/N. 

Y/N who had shoved him away and told him of his Creed to keep him from harm. To keep the little one from harm. He gave Rey a ration bar and she looked at it like it was made of Tranna Nougat Cream and ate it in carefully measured bites but she wolfed down the second one Din handed her. 

Little Rey. He had known her for a handful of hours and he knew she was special. Special. Like Y/N. 

And he had never seen Y/N move like that. Never seen anyone move like that. 

She was…magnificent. But he knew that her prowess came from years in the fighting pits, years on the run, training with Luke as a _Jetii_. And if all the Jedi of old had her power, no wonder that Mandalore saw them as a threat. 

He looked back at Rey now curled up in Y/N’s chair, fast asleep. Another Jedi. Or youngling. Padawan? Whatever. It didn’t matter. This child was the third Force-sensitive he had in his ship. The third time he’d betrayed Mandalore in that way. 

But she was a Foundling—wasn’t she? 

But not his. Rey was Y/N’s Foundling.

**

Y/N found Jakku strangely…endearing. It was too hot, too dry, and most of the locals were rude and selfish. But she found the unfiltered sunlight beautiful. The stripped star ships would glint and glitter in the sunlight and a handful of scrappers who passed by Rey’s AT-AT were kind. She traded the useable parts from the destroyed TIE and let others have the Troop Transport in exchange for water and information. She needed to know if anyone else had seen more Imps or ‘Order’ ships around the planet. No one seemed to know what ‘the Order’ was or who it was and all Y/N had was the vague notions of Moff Gideon and the Creature.

Maybe she shouldn’t’ve taken their heads. 

Whomever ‘the Order’ was, she knew they’d come again. So, she stayed put, rationalizing that whoever had sent Gideon to Jakku would know he hadn’t returned and come looking. 

But the nights were hard. Too quiet. Too still. She couldn't shake the unnatural chill that had settled in her bones with the destruction of the TIE> She could hear herself thinking. Thinking of little Rey. Of her Starchild. Of Ben. 

Of Din. 

Y/N rolled over on her little cot with a sigh, a familiar ache in her chest. “Din. Din. Din.” She liked his name. His beautiful, simple name that had her heart fluttering like a teenager and calming her soul in equal measure. 

And she wondered if he was thinking of her, too. She liked to think he was, even if it was a selfish thought, knowing he was caring for Rey. Hopefully they would be safely tucked away at the temple by now. But she closed her eyes and thought of him anyway. 

_“Good, good,” the voice said. “The strength of Mandalore has shaped you. Molded you. But I gave you power. I let you embrace your anger. You were weak before you came to me; I helped you realize your true potential.”_

_Lightning burst across the dark sky._

_Y/N saw herself just then. A black cloak around her shoulders with a black tunic and matching trousers. Something was wrapped around her face, leaving only her vibrant yellow eyes visible._

_“The true enforcer of the Sith. Protector of the might of the Empire.”_

_The lightning flashed again. What she saw left her cold. Ben and Rey…grown up and sitting on a stone throne; strong, powerful, dark. Two sets of yellow eyes stared back at her. “Our Hand,” they said together. They held out their hands toward her in a synchronized movement, eyes unblinking. “You’ve served us well.”_

_“I live to see your empire thrive.” Her voice sounded distorted. It wasn’t hers but it was; foreign yet familiar to her ears. “I am at your command.” She bowed at their feet, head tucked to her chest. When she stood, she felt different. The room tilted and she saw herself again. Black beskar was wrapped around her, encasing her like a walking tomb. Her helmet was all sharp angles and flat planes. But her eyes—her unnatural yellow eyes—continued to shine even through the visor._

_“It is time,” Ben commanded. But that name…it didn’t sound right. Not for him. Not like this._

_Y/N nodded and walked away from the throne and down a dark, cold passage. The room she turned in to offered no reprieve. Machines beeped and whirled and droids tittered all around something trapped in a tube. Wires and tubing protruded but she couldn’t quite see what was incased behind the thick transperisteel. But a droid moved._

_And there, in the tube, was the tiny body of her Starchild._

“No!” Y/N shot up on her little cot with a scream. 

Dawn had started to filter through the cracks of the AT-AT’s paneling. Hours must have past but she felt like she had only slept for a handful of minutes. It was the fifth nightmare she’d had since arriving on Jakku—one for every night she had been holed up on this planet. Whatever was coming was getting bolder. She could feel it. There was something innate about it all, something she could nearly touch. 

Y/N blindly reached out toward the rickety table to grasp the only thing that gave her comfort when her mind was racing on this terrible planet. Her fingers curled around her lightsaber and she pressed the hilt against her chest in a poor replacement for a hug. But then she kept reaching, grasping, for the next trinket on her table and held that too. The hilt was to angular and splintered to offer any comfort, but she tried. 

It had been a selfish impulse to keep the weapon. She was Mandalorian and Jedi—just like Tarre Vizsla. He was just as much a part of her history as he was of anyone else who called Mandalore home. She had claimed the weapon from Moff Gideon; by the old rite, it belonged to her. 

But it was the whispering voice in the back of her head that had sealed it—if she could not be Mandalorian, she could have the Darksaber. It was a conciliation prize in lieu of the people she wanted to be accepted by and who she could have at her side if the Stars had been kinder. (And her mind was even crueler, conjuring an image of a beskar helmet and a mudhorn signet.) But it was hers. It was the firmest grasp she’d had yet for embracing who she could have been, should have been. 

Hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Jetii means Jedi in Mando'a and I thought I was clever when I wrote it but I was also wine-drunk so whatever.)
> 
> Hello again, everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Only a handful more before everything is wrapped up. What did you think? What do you think will happen? Thank you so much for reading and for sticking by me and my little story. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. xx
> 
> please let me know what you would all like to read/what you think will happen in the last handful of chapters. I crave input!


	10. The Cyar’ika

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...things go 10 to 1000 in some aspects in this chapter. I hope you like it. ;)
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: SMUT - brief handjob, brief fingers (the glove stays on for a moment), unprotected sex--wrap it before you tap it in real life, my loves.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments on the last chapter!! xx

Months ago, Greef had left Din a message stating that he was happy he and Y/N had reunited—“ _her ship left early this morning, Mando!_ ”—but Din was still required to make the drop of his handful of bounties in a timely matter. 

And Din wasn’t even sure how long he stared at the holo, watching it over and over again and ignoring how Greef thought he wouldn’t deliver on his bounties. He had tried to track her, to find the ship in the vast galaxy but it was like she had vanished. 

Again. 

It didn’t help that he had never known her ship’s signature. And throughout the months that followed their last firefight on Jakku, he had looked for her. He asked Luke if he had received any sort of transmission from her or message. He asked the same of Ben. He even asked if anyone within the Guild had seen her ship across their travels. 

No one had. Y/N was still very good at disappearing.

When he had gone back to Jakku on a fledgling hope, all that was left in Rey’s small home had been Y/N’s tunic, ripped and dirtied, strips of it wrapped around more Night Blossoms. 

“This planet is not on any of my navigational-”

“That is the point, droid.” The kriffing droid was the most annoying thing he had ever encountered. Din was sure of it. Din was contemplating shutting down the droid again as they landed. It had been pure luck that Kay had been powered down when he brought Rey to Luke’s temple a handful of cycles ago. But luck had not been on his side this time and he now had to contend with the eight million concerns and questions the droid had about anything and everything. He should have left Kay back at the strange Jedi temple and be done with it. 

But he couldn’t. He could just shove her (obvious) favorite droid into some shadowed hall and forget about it. He couldn’t because what if she came back and wanted to see Kay? How would he even try to explain that? So he just…resisted the urge to put a bolt through the droid’s head. Kay didn’t even know the yacht’s signature either, having had it wiped from his memory banks before Din had reunited with Y/N all those months ago. 

“Y/N said she used live at a temple,” Kay’s electronically-stilted voice was strangely melancholy. “It was this one.” 

The droid put the pieces together—good, because there was no way Din was about to try and carry on a conversation about why he would throw Kay into a scrap bin if he even thought the droid was going to reveal the temple’s location. “Yeah.” 

The ramp opened and Din was quickly greeted by a swarm of younglings who had started to warm to him since he had delivered Rey into Luke’s care. He had a sneaking suspicion the little girl had been the ringleader in that regard. 

“Mister Mando!” 

And there she was, right in the center of the small crowd of kids running up to his ship as an exasperated Ben followed behind. “We are supposed to be meditating,” he heard Ben mutter as the group slowed to a stop at the base of the ramp. 

But then his little Foundling was grasping at his leg and Din bent without thought to hoist him into his arms. Little green hands pressed against his helmet and more flashes of Y/N’s face burst across his mind, followed by his Foundling’s adventures while still at the temple. Ben seemed to have taken on a leadership role and was constantly with the younglings if the flashes were anything to go by. 

Din held the little green alien a little tighter as he felt the dozen pairs of eyes staring at him. Questions on questions on questions were spilling from their mouths as they looked—asking about his adventures, asking about his ship, asking about Y/N. 

Ben’s dark eyes looked at him then, too. His gangly shoulders slumped. “C’mon, younglings. Mister Mando has to go talk to Master Luke.” There was an answering collective groan before most of the younglings turned and let Ben start to herd them back down into the grassy valley. Ben looked over his shoulder and Din one more time before he turned back to the kids with a small smile. “Meditation is important to the Jedi, younglings. You will learn this.” 

But little Rey was unmoved a few inches away. 

“Have you found him yet?” Rey asked with a toothy smile. 

“Who?”

“ _Him!_ ” she exclaimed, like it would explain. “I see him—every night, almost. You and Y/N bring him here. He’s supposed to be here. With me—with Luke,” the young girl added, cheeks flushing a ruddy hue. “You and Y/N bring him home.” 

“You see him?” He questioned, realizing what she had said. “In your… do you dream about him?” 

“Master Luke says some dreams are visions.” Her little chin pointed up, like she knew best. “And I see him every night.” 

Din really needed to talk to Luke about these visions that seemed to be multiplying amongst his students. “I’ll…talk to Luke about it.” 

“So you haven’t found him yet.”

He paused. Rey’s gaze was a bit too withering for someone her age. “No.” 

She huffed. “Fine. I’ll wait.” 

“Rey!” Ben’s voice rang out. “Stop bothering him!” 

She huffed and turned on her heel to follow the rest of the younglings down into the valley for meditation. 

There was another slight tap against his helmet, now just for attention. “Yeah, yeah. C’mon. Let’s go find Luke.” There was an answering happy chirp and Din felt himself smile for a moment behind his helmet. No matter what, his Foundling could almost always make him smile. 

Luke was helping an older padawan fasten some sort of holster to the end of their lightsaber in the shadows of the temple before he spotted Din. The padawan quickly scurried away as Luke approached him. 

“Have you heard from her?” Din asked, forgoing any sort of greeting. 

Luke sighed and Din’s chest hurt. “I have not. But I would not give up hope.” 

“The Empire is still out there and you don’t seem to care,” Din said, weeks of frustration getting pushed out from between clenched teeth. “She’s out there. Alone.” 

“She chose that, didn’t she? She told you to leave.” 

Din didn’t dignify that with an answer and continued to (mostly) regret telling the Jedi anything about Y/N. But Luke had been true to his promise to keep his Foundling safe—and Y/N trusted him, too. And Luke believed him when Din told him about how Moff Gideon said that something called ‘The Order’ rose from the ashes of the Empire. 

“What about Rey’s dreams?” Luke’s easy smile made him clench his teeth. “Are they like Y/N’s?” 

He nodded. “I believe they are. Rey is very strong with the Force—even if she did not realize she was Force-sensitive when she first arrived. She’s taken to the teachings very easily, one of my finest pupils besides Ben—or Y/N. I believe she is having visions. But I told Rey, just as I told Y/N, sometimes visions can be misleading.” 

The child in Din’s arms cooed as if agreeing. 

Din sighed.

**

Y/N let out a sigh as she deactivated her lightsabers. The bodies of the Sith acolytes littered the ground as more of the strange ash continued to fall from the sky.

The weeks she had spent on Jakku had given her plenty of time to think. To plan. To meditate—and she hated to admit that she was actually (almost) good at it now. All she needed was practice (and no, she would never admit that to Luke.) And she had been right, the Order—or whatever stupid name they called themselves—did come back to Jakku after Gideon had not returned with his quarry. A small battalion arrived only a few short cycles after Din had left with Rey. They were easily dealt with—she would also not be telling Luke about how easily she now wielded the lightning. Dealing with his disappointment was not high on her list of priorities. She just needed to finish this—whatever this was. 

But the time alone on that terrible planet had given her time to meditate, like some strange cosmic punishment. But it was a skill she needed, she supposed. Her visions had come again, this time at her own urging instead of slipping into her mind while she was sleeping. And it was these visions that led her to Mustafar. (She had stolen a speeder and taken it to Niima Outpost, calling for her ship after forcing her way into Unkar Platt’s horde and using his holo to send a message to her pilot droid, still waiting on Nevarro.) Once the seat of Darth Vader—Anakin Skywalker—Mustafar had started to transform. The planet had started to heal from its centuries of mining and exploitation, even as the Sith cultists continued to grow in number on the planet’s surface. Once terrible lava pits had become small streams. Barren lands had become small forests. The smog and smoke had cleared to reveal the inky sky. 

But she was not there for the scenery—as beautiful and terrible as it was to see. 

Y/N stomped over on tired legs to the large black stone container and waved her hand, sending the heavy lid to the ash-covered ground. She reached out and pulled the small thing from the container’s dark depths and nearly recoiled as it touched her skin. There was something inherently, innately wrong with it. 

She pulled it closer to look at the strange and shining thing that had led her here, coming again and again when she meditated and connected in her own jumbled way to the living Force. The bright sun lit the black pyramid just enough to show the star map in its depths. The strange star system was unrecognizable, unfamiliar. But Y/N knew that the Force had led her here, to this stupid little pyramid—a wayfinder, if she was guessing correctly. 

But then came the voice, or hundreds of voices chanting together as one; “ _come, come_ ,” they whispered. “ _Come and find what you seek_.” 

Y/N didn’t even remember calling the yacht back down to the surface of the planet or riding the elevator up to the small cockpit, plugging the ship’s navigation system wiring through the wayfinder’s face. Her pilot droid beeped, indignant, at the course the path the wayfinder displayed across the viewport. 

“ _Come and find us…_ ” she heard the voices again. 

And as she stared at the flashing path that reached across the stars, Y/N knew where she had to go.

**

This was a stupid idea.

This was a tremendously stupid idea. When had he become so desperate? 

The New Senate building loomed in front of him like the Mudhorn, large and taunting. Angry. 

“Well,” Kay started, “are we going in or are you just going to stare at it?” 

“Shut up.” But he moved to enter the gleaming building anyway, hearing Kay’s durasteel footsteps trailing closely behind. The small grouping of New Senate aides and junior senators gave him a wide berth as he stepped inside and the usual whispers quickly followed, even as he stepped inside the turbolift. He found his way toward Organa’s offices and knocked once before the door opened. 

“-one else has to believe it.” It was the Senator’s voice he heard first, tucked around a corner as the bright sunlight filtered through the large viewports. 

Organa’s assistant stood from her desk with a faltering smile as she spotted him and her eyes cautiously moved to the imperial-era droid at his back. “She’s in a meeting, Mandalorian. If you’ll take a seat, I’ll let her know you’re here-” 

Din didn’t care, even as Kay settled in one of the plush chairs she had pointed toward. He moved around the desk and toward the open door as the assistant started to babble about ‘a meeting’ and ‘Senator Organa is busy at the moment!’ and ‘you shouldn’t be so rude!’ But then he was inside his office and almost freezing as he saw Y/N sitting opposite Leia, the grey stone of the desk separating them. A strange pyramid sitting on the gleaming surface. 

The assistant followed him in, huffing. “I am so sorry, Senator. He just-”

Both women turned to look at them and Y/N smiled—he tried to ignore how his chest tightened at the sight. Words he wanted to say—Stars, he really needed to work on that—stuck in his throat like a wad of cotton.

Leia waved away the assistant, saying something about expecting him and the other woman huffed but retreated, snapping the door shut as she left. But all Din saw was Y/N. And she hadn’t stopped looking at him either. 

“Well, sit down, Mando,” Leia said, pointing at a chair beside Y/N. He begrudgingly took it, sitting stiffly on the overstuffed cushion as Leia turned back to Y/N. “As I was saying, I cannot guarantee anyone will listen. What you’re proposing is teetering on the wrong side of insanity. The Galaxy is still healing from the Empire-”

“The Empire is still out there. They’ve just changed their name.” Y/N pointed at the strange pyramid on Leia’s table. “That proves it. I know it does. Take a New Senate starship—a battalion!—to where this thing leads. It’ll give you all the proof you need.” Y/N sounded like she was bordering on exasperation, hands waving wildly as she spoke. And he liked how passionately she spoke—he liked hearing her argue her point—and well, he just liked hearing her voice. 

Leia shook her head but reached out to grasp the pyramid and she grimaced, much like Y/N did when she had taken the dagger from the Creature on Pasaana. 

“You feel it, too. Don’t you?” Y/N asked, leaning forward in her seat. And Din absolutely did not watch the curve of her spine with rapt attention. 

Leia dropped the pyramid into a drawer as her shoulders nearly reached her ears, like she was trying to recoil away from the object while still holding onto it. “Y/N-”

“Luke told me he trained you. You’re Force-Sensitive, Leia! I know you feel it.”

“Whether I feel it or not doesn’t matter,” Leia retorted. But then she sighed, sagging in her seat as she rubbed at her temples. “I do feel it. But that doesn’t mean I can convince anyone else of it.” 

“I’m just asking you to try! Whatever is out there wants…” Din watched Y/N contort her face, shades of fear and aggravation pushing one into another and back again as she tried to find the words she needed. “It wants your son.”

Leia’s jaw clenched. 

“It wants his ad'ika,” Y/N said, pointing directly at Din. (And he tried to ignore how he felt when she used the Mandalorian term. And how she felt that something wanted him.) “It wants little Rey.” Her breath stuttered and Din felt his hands curling to fists at his sides. “It wants me.” 

“For what?” Leia asked, dark eyes wilder than he had ever seen. 

“Darkness,” Y/N bit out, her hands curling over her knees. “Like you could never imagine.” 

And those few words left the ever-astute Leia Organa silent. 

Just for a moment. 

“I knew something was happening with him. I knew it. I just never thought it would be some shadow…” 

Y/N leaned across the desk to grasp at Leia’s hands. “I came here because you’re Luke’s sister, you’re one of the most formidable and admired senators in this lackluster new government. You are our only hope. Please. Please, just help me.”

**

The rooms Leia had given her were luxurious. Nothing she hadn’t seen before with the views over the bustling metropolis and silk sheets and blankets and a butler droid or two—but it was luxurious. But it was quiet. Very, very quiet.

She cleaned her face and changed into a loose pair of trousers and a tunic she’d had since her time on Gatalenta that left her feeling a bit more relaxed as opposed to the various bulky layers that Luke insisted the Jedi wear. Y/N was usually fine with it, the robes usually made everyone give her a wider berth whenever she walked into a room—and it almost made her smile because it reminded her of how everyone cleared a path for Din wherever he went. It was a bit ridiculous, but she liked it. 

But now, even as she was comfortable and she was tired, she couldn’t sleep. 

Din had quickly disappeared into his rooms after Leia’s assistant had given them the key and shown him to the door. Y/N tried not to take it personally but it did sting a bit—more than she wanted to admit even after he gently grasped her wrist and squeezed before walking away. She rubbed at her temples before throwing the silken blankets off her legs and standing before padding over to look out toward the city. It had been a long day. She and Leia had been in her office for hours before Din had shown up and they stayed put until the sun had set. 

Apparently political maneuvering was a time-consuming process. 

Y/N did not care for it. And she didn’t feel like Din did either with how many angry sighs he hid behind his modulator or how she watched his helmet tilt almost imperceptibly to the side whenever something was said he didn’t particularly like. But maybe she just knew his tells now. 

Just like she knew exactly where he would be. 

After checking on Kay, who was in sleep-mode atop an overstuffed cushion in the corner (after they had reunited the droid would not stop talking and had drained the battery), she redressed and slipped by the guards Leia had stationed before the cool night air welcomed her in a wave. The docks weren’t a lengthy walk and the Razor Crest stood out like a sore thumb when it was bracketed by the shiny, new models of starships owned by politicians and the planet’s rich inhabitants. But it felt like finding an old blanket, warm and comfortable and familiar. 

Y/N punched in the access code for the ramp and quickly walked up. 

Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised to be staring at the end of a blaster as soon as she walked up the ramp. Din was a bounty hunter and had been hunted, too. Always on guard. But his blaster lowered and she barely heard the sigh he emitted from under his helmet. He had shed most of his armor, leaving him in a thin black tunic and loose trousers. His feet were covered in thick socks—and for some reason that made her laugh. 

“I knew you wouldn’t like your rooms.” 

He hummed, the sound reverberating behind his helmet as he turned to place his blaster back into the cabinet. The doors hissed closed.

She turned and closed the ramp and engaged the ground security protocols like she had done dozens of times before. The rueful smile she felt blooming on her lips was quickly stifled before she turned back to him. Her mouth opened and closed with words she wanted to say but they all seemed so trivial to what she actually felt. 

“I looked for you,” he said, breaking the small silence. “For weeks I looked for you. You didn’t even give me a chance to meet you after you left Jakku.”

Y/N felt the breath stutter in her lungs. “I told you to leave, Din. Rey was safest with you-”

“I don’t care. From now on, we go everywhere together.” 

Her throat tightened. She wanted—needed to tell him. “Din, I-”

But then he was gathering her close and pressing his forehead against hers, the cold of the beskar making a shiver shoot down her spine. His arms were tight around her, hands cradling the back of her head like she was something precious, like she was something delicate. 

“Oh,” was all she could say. **Brilliant.**

****

****

“I’m never leaving you behind again. Don’t ever ask me to do that. I don’t care what it is—I’m going with you.” 

Y/N could only nod, forehead sliding against his helmet, unwilling to pull back. “Okay.” 

Din’s hands dropped to her hips and dragged her ever closer. “Swear to me.” The words were gruff and hard but still so full of Din’s hidden need to care. To protect. 

“I swear,” she said, words catching in her throat as she felt a curl of heat start to bloom in her lower stomach. “I swear it.” 

But then they both paused, unwilling to step back or to pull their hands away from each other. The strange need to be close growing stronger with each breath. And her fingers found their way to his belt, a silent question. 

He nodded—just once—before his hands clamped down on her hips and he was spinning them around, shoving her back against the wall of the Crest. A choked sort of moan warbled in her throat before her fingers continued to fumble with the buttons at his waist before her hand slid inside, finding him hot and hard underneath his utilitarian underclothes. And he was big—she was barely able to touch her thumb and finger together as she encircled him and it dried her mouth, thinking of the stretch it could bring. Oh, he was glorious. 

A stuttered breath came from behind his helmet and he gave another squeeze to her hips. 

“This is okay?” She asked. 

“Yeah.” 

Her fingers squeezed and a choked sound escaped him before his hands started to paw at her own trousers, pushing them down to reveal her unembellished underwear but those were quickly shucked down her legs too, her boots clumsily kicked off her feet. 

She heard his harsh breath as one of his gloved hands reached down to push through her folds, soaking the leather almost instantly and she shuddered as his thumb pressed against her hardened clit—and maybe she should have been embarrassed by how quickly she became aroused, slick enough to easily accept his fingers as they started to plunder and he was rewarded with wet sounds that had her keening. But she wasn’t. All she felt was that growing coil in her stomach and his hot length in her hand as she continued to squeeze and pump him in her grasp. 

Her breath fogged against his helmet’s visor and her hips lifted with each curl of his fingers but then he was pulling back and he shook off his glove before his fingers returned to her heat and she wailed, feeling his warmth, finally feeling his warmth, where she needed him. “Din…Din, I…” 

“I’ve got you, mesh’la.” 

His voice was low and guttural and had her keening again, pressing down against his hand, pulling him deeper into her depths until she was all but riding his fingers as his other hand rose to palm her breast over her rumpled tunic. He squeezed with an unpracticed ferocity that had her gasping, just on the right side of pain. Her pumping rhythm faltered as Din curled his fingers and he found the spot inside her that had her biting back another wail as stars started to explode behind her eyes—she hadn’t remembered shutting them. 

“There you go, cyar’ika. There you go,” he said, continuing to work her through her orgasm until she finally reached down to push his wet fingers away but she gaped as she watched those same fingers dip under his helmet. 

Y/N let out a moan, knowing he was licking his digits clean—but then her hands were back on his trousers again, tugging them down just enough to free his cock and the grabbed at the tan skin of his hips to drag him close. His hands quickly grasped at her; one grabbing at her thigh and hitching it around his waist, the other guiding his cock toward her, letting it catch and push through her folds before he thrust in—in one, slow, beautiful push until he was fully embraced in her velvety walls and the curls at the base of him scratched deliciously at her skin. 

It knocked the wind from her lungs as she watched him disappear inside. The burn was wonderful, stretching Y/N to her limit and stuffing her full—she had never felt so full. And then he started to move, with each thrust pushing her further into the cold durasteel of the Crest’s wall, a stark contrast to his warm body. His grip tightened on her thigh and his other hand snaked to the back of her neck, pinning her, keeping her close as he continued to move. 

“O-Oh Din,” was all she could manage, trying to convey how she felt. How good he felt, how right this felt, how much she loved him. She lifted her hips to match his thrusts as best she could on one leg, but let him drive deep and hard—let him take what he needed. 

Hard breaths were stilted under his helmet but Y/N heard them, letting each one shoot right down to her core. Half formed words tumbled out too, and she could never make out what he was trying to say. 

Both of them both seemed to be incapable of speech, all they could do was try to pull the other closer, hold the other a little tighter, even as their hips continued to move and the sound of slick slapping skin filled the space in some sort of lewd music. She could listen to it for ages. 

His rhythm started to quicken and she let out a broken moan, the coil starting to tighten again, the drag of his curls against her clit and the slam of his hips only fueled the fire—coiling tighter and tighter until it snapped and she wailed, pulling him closer and closer, pressing her forehead against his again as she started shake, feeling her walls flutter as much as they could around his length and her already-hazed mind continued to cloud. But Din did not stop, did not falter, and continued to chase his own high—and then, he drove deep, once, twice, three times before stilling and she could feel a flood of warmth pool before it managed to slide out and dribble down onto her thigh. She shivered again as Din carefully set her leg down, fingers trailing over where he had locked his fingers to press into her skin in a quiet apology. Din carefully slipped out of her and she shuddered at the movement, feeling more of him slip down her skin as he pulled up his trousers, not caring enough to button them again. Y/N unconsciously pressed her burning thighs together, wanting to keep it close—to keep Din close. She didn’t move her forehead away from his helmet and he didn’t move either. 

But then- 

He pulled back just enough to touch the small strip of beskar and fabric on the top of her head and he pulled it down in front of her eyes. 

“Din?” She asked, but she didn’t move to push it back up. She trusted him. 

There was an answering ‘clang’—a voice she knew so well. It was beskar hitting durasteel. But then he kissed her, warm hands cradling her face with a reverent touch that had her sobbing against his mouth as he gently coaxed her lips apart. He tasted like something sweet with a kick of smoke and she briefly wondered if she could instantly become addicted to something—because he was the best thing she had ever savored. 

The kiss was a little unpracticed on both their counts, and Y/N heard herself giggle as their noses collided more than once. But it felt nice. Somehow more intimate than the hurried, half-clothed fuck they’d just shared. Again and again he came back to press his lips against hers and then let his tongue curl around hers and her heart was in her throat as she felt him smile against her mouth. 

Her hands grasped at his wrists as he continued to hold her face in his warm hands and a breathy laugh escaped her throat when their noses knocked together again. 

_Stars, she could kiss him forever._

It was just him and her in his old starship—nothing else existed for that little bit of time. Y/N knew she would treasure it forever. 

But after he pressed a kiss to her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and stole one last one against her lips, Din pulled back and Y/N heard his helmet’s sealant engage again. Careful hands gently pushed the beskar back against the top of her head and Y/N blinked against the light of the ship. Din was in front of her, helmet back on. 

She reached out to him and he greedily accepted her hands, thumbs sliding across the backs of her fingers before he led her toward the ‘fresher without a word and handed her one of his threadbare towels. It was a quiet act of care, she thought, something very simple but she felt her heart squeezing in her chest regardless. 

They were both very new to this. 

Maybe they could learn together. 

Y/N showered quickly, the lukewarm water helping her completely her task in the hastiest fashion before she stepped out into the hull, dressed back in her loose tunic and her reclaimed underwear. The lights of the Crest had been turned to low and she briefly remembered the night she had spent wrapped in his arms after her nightmare. He was so gentle with her—so different from him when he was hunting a bounty. 

And he was all hers, in that regard. 

As she stepped further out, a sudden whooshing sound had her turning just in time to feel arms wrapping around her waist and hauling her into the small cubby used as the ship’s bunk. The small door slid shut as soon as she cleared the opening and she was surrounded in pitch darkness. 

“You haven’t been sleeping.” 

“That makes two of us,” she said with a laugh, trying to contain her giddiness at hearing his voice without the helmet. It was low and gravely and a pleasant ache once again reigned in her stomach at the sound. He smelled like soap and blaster oil, like he had wiped himself down with something in an attempt to clean up and she greedily pressed a little closer, trying to inhale it all and brand it on her lungs. 

They were quiet, moving around in the small bunk to comfortably wrap around each other in the dark. Her ear found his heart and she listened to its steady bump-bump-bump with a tired smile. 

They had wasted so much time. 

And they were quiet for a few moments, listening to the recycled air system kick on and their evened breathing. But, of course, that small reprieve had to end, too. 

“You know Organa won’t be able to get them to agree on anything.” 

Y/N sighed but didn’t move her head from his chest, wandering fingers found the raised edge of a scar on his stomach and she idly traced it, listening to how his heartbeat quickened for a few beats. “It was worth a try.” She paused. “Why were you coming to her office?” 

“I was going to ask her to track you down. You were very good at disappearing.” 

Y/N chuckled, low and tired but strangely happy to know that he had wanted to find her so badly he had decided to come to the New Republic for information. “Learned from the best.” 

Din’s hand curled a little tighter around her shoulder and he sighed, too, before letting the comfortable silence stretch again. “I meant what I said: where you go, I go.” 

Y/N nodded. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Okay,” she repeated, smiling as she turned to press a kiss against his chest, like she had done it thousands of times before. “But you’re not going to like where we’re going.” 

“Where are we going, cyar’ika?” 

Y/N delighted in how the nickname rolled off his tongue and tried not to think of how her backup plan was now her main objective. She pressed the thought of Ben, little Rey, her Starchild into her mind instead of how her stomach rolled at her coming revelation, “Mandalore.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO! I am really, really, really, desperately wanting to finish this fic before the second season premiers. So, I am humbly asking for you guys to kick my ass so I write the last two chapters. Please. Please. Please. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you think will happen/what you want to see. Please.


	11. The Mandalorian

“Why did I think this was a good idea?” Y/N muttered as she felt Din land the Razor Crest. 

Stars, were all of her plans always this ridiculous? 

But, truthfully, they had nowhere else to go. Leia had found them the following afternoon and told them that the Senate had not been able to reach an agreement on what to do about the Y/N’s supposed evidence—it did not help that some systems seemed to be steadfast in refusing to see that Leia was anything but Darth Vader’s daughter. “I’ll keep trying,” Leia said as she explained her situation. “But I would understand if you resorted to other means.” The pointed look was really all Y/N needed. Leia had told Y/N all about how there were systems loyal to what they were calling the ‘First Order,’ some imperial remnant who had survived and convinced others that they were a legitimate government—not the fascists of years ago. 

Din was right—it was all a joke.

And while Mandalore was technically part of the New Republic, but the system had rarely participated in anything the government needed, preferring to govern themselves without inside interference. But their power was still near-mythical and fearsome—and Y/N knew that they were the only option the Galaxy had—well, in Y/N’s mind anyway.

Y/N’s yacht had trailed behind the Razor Crest on their way to Mandalore but she had given her droids instruction to stay out of the planet’s gravitational pull to avoid their scanners or radar. Rolling up with a ship full of droids probably wouldn’t earn them any points. But, then again, the cards were probably stacked against them anyway. 

Her being a Jedi. 

Din belonging to an ultra-traditional Tribe who had absconded from Mandalore’s community. 

“Stars,” Y/N said, rubbing at her temples. 

Din stepped to her side and his warm hand pressed against the small of her back as the ramp slowly unfurled. He didn’t say anything but she didn’t mind. He had always been quiet, she didn’t expect or need him to change. It was enough to just have him at her side. 

“Ready?” She asked. 

He sighed. 

“Great. Me neither.” 

They both walked out into the bright sunlight, quickly ducking into the shadows of one of the monolith-like buildings to avoid a group of quickly marching Mandalorians. Y/N pulled up the map of the city, hoping she wouldn’t get lost on the way to the Mand’alor’s palace. They pushed through the streets, avoiding more groupings of men and women clad in both beskar and civilian clothing, only a few stopped to stare at them, eyes lingering on the lightsabers on her hips or the mudhorn signet on his shoulder. 

Mandalore had suffered greatly during the Clone Wars and under the Empire. But they were a resilient people. Their souls were made of beskar, it seemed. When Y/N had hailed the Mand’alor’s personal guard and asked for a meeting, they had been wary but curious. What could a Jetii give Mandalore?

Y/N hoped what she had to offer would be enough. 

For the Galaxy’s sake.

**

Din stood just outside the Mand’alor’s door. Unmoving.

Y/N had been called in just a few minutes ago and Bo-Katan Kryze had glanced at him for a long, stretched minute, before turning to Y/N and shutting the door. It had unnerved him. Kryze had not been cowed by age. Even with her greyed hair and obvious age, the Mand’alor was still a fearsome woman. Even within the shadows of his Tribe, Din had heard of the woman who fought in the shadows against the Empire, uniting most of the clans to protect Mandalore and Mandalorians. 

But his Tribe had retreated. Did not heed the call to come back to their home when the Empire fell. They had found strength within their small group—and safety. The constant hiding, the focus on secrecy and protecting their numbers—it was all so different from the lives he saw here. 

But the Tribe had been there for him when the Empire came. It was the Tribe who had kept him safe. It was the Tribe who had given him purpose. 

But that had changed, hadn’t it? 

The Child. The Jedi. Y/N. 

It had changed. 

He had found loophole after loophole in the strict Creed to keep them close. 

He wanted them close. 

Din was lost in his thoughts for just a moment and had almost been surprised to see a small boy, probably no older than six, staring up at him. A smudge of dirt was tracked across his cheek.

“We’re inside,” the kid said.

“…yes.” 

“Why’s your helmet on?” The kid sniffled and wiped at his nose. “Mom says it’s rude to keep your bucket on inside.” 

“Lukan!” 

They both turned to see a woman marching down the hall, helmet tucked under her arm and bedecked in her armor, the signet of her clan on her shoulder. 

“I told you not to run off,” she gently scolded as she knelt to the boy’s level, gently wiping away the dirt on his skin, before her eyes flickered to him and then down to the mudhorn signet on his pauldron. “Was he bothering you?”

“He’s fine,” Din said, clipped. 

The woman’s eyes narrowed for a moment, like she was studying him, before she nodded once and rose to stand straight, holding her son’s hand. “Ret'urcye mhi,” she said with a dip of her chin. 

Din reciprocated and watched them walk away, little Lukan prattling on about the ‘rude man who wouldn’t take his bucket off’ while his mother patiently listened. 

Time continued to pass, hours slipping one into another, and Din did not move from his post. He would not leave Y/N alone, no matter if it was just with another Mandalorian. 

As the sun started to set, making the city glitter in the dying orange light, the door finally opened. Din tried not to let out a sigh of relief as Y/N stepped out first, tired but smiling. Kryze followed soon after, a firm determination on her aged features. She and Y/N exchanged a few quiet words before gripping each other’s forearms in goodbye before Kryze was striding away, her small fleet of advisors and two guards quickly following. 

Din quickly noticed that one of the lightsabers Y/N had clipped to her belt was missing. 

“It wasn’t mine to take,” Y/N said once they were alone in the hallway. She leaned against him, forehead pressing against the beskar at his shoulder and Din was quick to wrap his arms around her, keeping her steady and trying not to revel in how perfect she felt against him or how his entire body seemed to relax when he felt her hands slide across his back. 

But he didn’t think he would ever truly understand that Y/N was his to hold. For all to see. 

“We will leave by the end of next cycle,” she murmured, voice quiet. 

“Leave?” 

Y/N hummed and he felt it reverberate in his chest. 

“Where are we going?” Din asked, knowing he’d follow her anywhere.

Y/N looked at him with a sparkle in her eyes that had him biting back a sigh behind his helmet. “Exegol.”

**

Finding a nearly fully operational base on the planet had not exactly been what Y/N had been planning to find, if she was entirely honest. And she had almost been struck down by the sense of darkness she felt as soon as the ship entered the atmosphere.

It felt…wrong. On a cellular level. It took her half a dozen steps before Y/N realized she had been here before—she had seen the lightning in the sky, she had heard the ground crunch beneath her feet, she had felt that dark press against her heart. 

But she had not been alone this time. She was with Din—and surrounded by Mandalorians who had answered her call to help the Galaxy when everyone else was too wrapped up in politics. 

The Mandalorians and handful of allies had managed to destroy the base but there had been many casualties and the revelations of what they found there was…devastating. 

And Y/N knew it was selfish to admit, she had just been happy to have Din standing at her side when it was all finished and all that was left of the base was ash and rubble. 

_“Stay with me!”_

_Din was yelling. Why was Din yelling? He never yelled. Not at her. But his voice was all she could hear was Din’s voice and the ringing—that terrible, terrible ringing. When had she fallen down? All she could do was stare up at the dark sky, feeling the ash and dirt coat her skin. And then hands were cradling her face and the most beautiful bit of beskar was blocking her view of the sky. He was shouting again. But now it was her name—over and over and over again._

_“C’mon, cyar’ika, you have to look at me.”_

Y/N looked across the hull with unfocused eyes as the starship rumbled, pushing through the strange, twisting, and downright dangerous path from Exegol back to Mandalore. The doctor had taken Din to look over as soon as they boarded. 

“He’ll be fine,” A soft voice said. 

Y/N looked up to see a woman someone had said was named Shara—Shara Bey or something, Y/N was still terrible with names. She had been sent by Leia to aid in a capacity she could not because of all the political red tape. And Y/N had been thankful for Shara—and the handful of others that Leia had discreetly sent to aid--they had shown up at the eleventh hour when Y/N and Din had been pinned by a group of red-armored Stormtroopers. But all she could truly see was how Din was still getting checked over by a very thorough doctor with a scanner who never seemed to stop looking like she was about to deliver some sort of death sentence.

Shara sighed and reached out, careful fingers touching Y/N’s head with a frown. Y/N barely noticed the woman’s fingers catching on the strip of beskar. 

“You’re going to need some bacta—I’ll let the doctor know.” Shara pulled back, fingers now sticky with drying blood from a wound Y/N didn’t even remember getting—but head wounds have a tendency to do that. “It looks like that little bit of metal saved your life. Took most of the impact.” 

“ ‘s beskar,” Y/N said, tongue heavy in her mouth. “That’s what it does.” 

“I didn’t realize you were Mandalorian,” Shara said with another small smile. “Leia said you were a Jedi.” 

Y/N just nodded, too out of it to argue that she couldn’t be both—and she probably wasn’t a true Jedi anyway. Thankfully, another person—someone from the New Senate—stepped up to her side and whispered something in her ear and they both quietly excused themselves. 

Y/N’s eyes remained focused on Din and she pushed a long breath as the doctor finally nodded and Din walked back over to her. Y/N reached out and pulled him down into the seat next to her with a bit too much force if the quiet ‘oof’ he let out was any indication. But she could feel him, sense him—that solid, beautiful presence that was innately him, surrounding him. It was one of the few times she had ever used her abilities on him—and all she wanted to feel was him. Her hand pressed against the warmed metal and let herself breathe. The chest piece was damaged, the left Hal’cabur—the piece just over his heart. Y/N let her fingers slide over the marred beskar, pads catching on the jagged edge and dipping into the divot. It would need to be patched--thankfully, it would not need much to fix it. 

_Din hauled her to her feet as she finally regained some sense of coherency. “Good?” He asked just as something exploded (again)._

_Y/N nodded and patted at his chest, briefly wondering at the destruction they had wrought. The base was destroyed. The half-completed Star Destroyers were in ruins. The strange and terrible cloning facility had been engulfed in flames—the screaming had died out only a few moments ago. But there was still more fighting to be done—they were almost finished. She could feel it. The darkness receding._

_“You’re one of us,” a voice whispered. And for a moment, she felt cold fingers grasp at her neck, urging her to step forward into the fire, to save something before it disappeared forever._

_But she turned and pressed tighter to Din’s side. “Yeah, I’m good.”_

The ship rumbled when it landed and Y/N all but dragged Din back out into the sunlight of Mandalore, letting its warmth wash over them and she finally—finally—felt the last leaches of that certain darkness leave. The Dark Side of the Force would always be within her grasp, she knew. But it was simply part of her—it was not some faceless man haunting her dreams anymore. The darkness was no longer usurped by the whispers. It simply was. 

And she could handle it—with Din at her side. Right? 

When Din grasped at her hand, tightening his grip just a fraction, she had her answer. 

_There was a straggler—some angry, old man who had managed to sneak up behind them and Y/N tackled Din just in time for the blaster bolt to clear his head. Y/N shoved out her hand and sent the man flying into the jagged durasteel pile a few yards away. There was a short, surprised shout—and then nothing. Good._

_Still on the ground, Y/N looked down at Din and smiled. “Even?”_

_Din sighed._

Bo-Katan was striding toward them, her beskar still shining and fitting her like it had for decades and Y/N fought the urge to step behind Din like she was about to be scolded. The Mand’alor herself had taken part in the battle, leading charges and helping take down the Final Order—and honestly, what a stupid a name—once and for all when Exegol had been revealed to be a large, nearly-operational base. The woman had called out battle plans and formations like she had been waiting years for something like this. 

“The exile of the excommunicated. And the lost tribe. It seems we owe you both very much.” She thrust out her hand and Din took it first before Y/N followed. “The Galaxy will know that Mandalore saved them—yet again.” Bo waved a hand and a small trail of Final Order officers were led out of one of the ships and out toward the city by a group of armored Mandalorians with heavy artillery drawn and pointed—ready to fire. “We will present the evidence to the New Senate by next cycle.” She crossed her arms over her chest and Y/N braced to be banished again, after all—what else could she give? “You two are true Mandalorians.” 

And Y/N could have sworn she felt her heart try to shoot up into her mouth. “Mand’alor-”

“I said what I said,” she said. “Your clan will be part of the hall of heroes in the Royal Academy when this is finished.” 

A familiar choking sound came from behind Din’s helmet and now Y/N found herself stepping in front of Din. “Well, we, um, we’re not—um—we’re not married.” Brilliant. Nailed it. 

The older woman’s eyes narrowed and she let out a short “hm” at Y/N’s jumbled revelation. But, thankfully, another Mandalorian came up and whispered something in her ear and she was excusing herself before Y/N could embarrass herself further. 

Din led her back toward the Razor Crest where they’d hidden it in a dark corner of the hangar and Y/N let herself breathe only when the ramp closed behind them, sealing them away from the rest of the world. She laughed as Din knocked his forehead against hers, ignoring the slight sting that came with the touch. Her fingers danced up to his shoulders to hold him close. 

“There were some close calls today,” he said. 

Y/N nodded—it wasn’t like she could refute that. 

“And the Mand’alor. She seems to think we are…” 

Y/N couldn’t help the smirk pulling at her face. “We are…” she drifted off, teasing him. 

“Together.” Din said, sounding harsher than she knew he wanted to in that moment. 

“Do you want to be? Is that what we are?” Y/N knew she wanted to be, she wanted to call him hers and she could be called his—but he had his Creed and she would never push him for something more than he could give. If all they could be was occasional fuck buddies who probably cared too much about each other, then she would take it. 

“Of course we are,” he said, but then quickly added, “if you want to be.” 

And her heart practically melted within its lonely confines of her chest at the sound of his words. “Of course, sweet man. Of course I want to be with you in any way I can. I know…” she swallowed a hard, happy lump in her throat as she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. “I know we’re not—I know most would call us an unlikely sort of pair, but I’m letting myself be a little selfish.” 

“It isn’t selfish. I…” It seemed both of them were struggling with words today. And then his hands were grasping at the bottom of his helmet and she was struck at the sight of his tanned neck and then a sharp line of a jaw was revealed too—and it took her a moment to realize what he was doing before she was scrambling to press the helmet back down, hands sliding across the top of it without an ounce of grace as her heart nearly burst from her chest. 

“Don’t,” she said, the word lodging in her throat. “Don’t do that.” 

“I want to show you,” Din said, prying her hands away from his helmet. 

All they continue to do was cling to each other, half-crazed, half-heartbroken. 

“I’m not worth it,” the words tumbled out of her mouth without a thought—but she knew them to be true. Knew she could never be the one he broke his Creed for, something he held so dear. “You can’t. Your Creed-”

But then he stepped back out of her grip and wrenched the helmet off his head and it clattered to the ground of the ship. 

Y/N slapped a hand over her eyes like a child and shook her head, refusing to look at him. “Din—you can’t! You can’t!” She continued to blather, feeling something wet touch her fingers, taking her a moment to realize that she was crying, tears starting to soak her skin. “Please-”

His roughened hand gently tugged on her wrist, starting to pull her hand away from her eyes. “Let me show you. I want to show you,” Din whispered against her mouth. “This is my choice, Y/N.” 

And she took a moment to breathe, heart stuttering in her chest, and then she let her hand fall away. She opened her eyes…and saw the warmest brown gaze looking back.  
“Oh.” Was all she could say (again). Her hands reached out to touch his face, swiping her thumbs across his cheekbones and reveling in the softness of his skin, a stark contrast to the rough texture of his hands she loved. She pulled back just enough to run a finger down his nose, huffing out a laugh when he wrinkled his nose as the touch. He was so handsome. So handsome. 

Din gathered her close again to steal another kiss and she knew then that she was addicted to his taste. She could feel words trying to claw their way out of her throat—and she wanted to say them. Wanted to say them so badly. “Din… I-Ni-”

But his warm hands cupped her face and he was kissing her again, kissing her over and over again and she could feel his smile against her mouth. And Y/N would swear her heart grew three sizes in that moment.

Quick hands grabbed at each other’s clothing and armor, starting to shed the layers with a hurried, unpracticed grace that had clothes and beskar slapped against the ground of the Crest in uneven intervals and then her hands were sliding under his tunic, feeling his beautiful warmth under her fingers and-

-there was a sudden pounding at the ships door. “Jetii! The Mand’alor requests your presence immediately.” There was a pause and Y/N didn’t quite pull out of Din’s grip just yet. “Both of you.” 

Din leaned forward to catch her lips again before bending and grabbing at his helmet. 

Moment over. 

When they’d redressed and followed the disgruntled guard back into the palace, Y/N took note of the buzzing atmosphere—not necessarily out of place after a victory, but it had an edge to it. Something simmering she could nearly taste. It didn’t take long to know what had transpired in the few stolen moments she and Din had been away.

One of the captured high-ranking officers had broken, revealing that the First Order was simply the first phase of their plan. And there were secret bases in the Unknown Regions of the Galaxy. It was almost pathetic how easily he had divulged the intel. But Y/N didn’t care. She just wanted this finished. 

Shara promised that the officer would be dragged in front of the New Senate to expose the First Order’s true intentions for the rest of the Galaxy—she had holo’d her husband, Kes Dameron, and he would personally take the captured officers to the New Senate with a Mandalorian escort.

Bo-Katan turned to Y/N and Din, lips set in a hard line and still covered in a bit of grime from Exegol. “We cannot wait for the Senate to debate whether these bases exist and give them the opportunity to dispose of anyone that are evidence to their crimes. I need you two, as Mandalorians, to go to one of the planets this scum has said they have bases and make the appropriate choice.” 

The words and old hurts turned her tongue before she could even try to stop them—“I’m not Mandalorian.” 

And Y/N fully expected for Bo-Katan to agree, and then realize Y/N had been too close for comfort in Mandalorian affairs and then banish her from the system forever—but maybe she was being dramatic. But, of course, the Mand’alor had to keep Y/N on her metaphorical toes. She reached out and placed a wrinkled hand on Y/N’s shoulder with a small smile. “My girl, you handled the Dark Saber of Tarre Vizsla, claimed it from the enemy and returned it home. You are every bit the blood of this people.”

“I-”

“You are not going to argue with your Mand’alor, are you?” She asked with a quirked brow. 

“N-no.” Y/N felt like a scolded child and like she had just won some sort of cosmic lottery in equal measure. “Thanks.” She was such a whiz with words.

Bo-Katan then focused her piercing gaze on Din at Y/N’s back. “Your Tribe has always been welcome to come back.” A loaded statement, to be sure, but the woman let it linger before she then rattled off plans, giving coordinates and assigning who was going where and with whom but Y/N looked back as Din quietly grasped her hand, wordlessly tugging her backward, letting others fill in the gap they created around the Mand’alor. 

“You don’t have to go,” he quietly said.

“I have to go,” Y/N said, knowing that she truly needed to finish this. 

“ _We_ have to go,” Din quietly corrected.

Y/N shook her head. “I can’t ask that of you-”

“Where you go, I go. Remember?” 

And her heart tried to leap from her chest and into his hands—but she managed to simply smile instead.

**

The trip from Mandalore to the Unknown Regions took a handful of cycles and Y/N tried to not think of how she was warring with herself: wanting to finally tell Din how she felt—how she might have always felt, if she was being serious—and not wanting to possibly (probably) ruin whatever short-lived thing she and Din had fallen into together. And she really needed to not focus on that because there were definitely bigger things at stake at the moment.

But she did let herself revel in how seemed to constantly need to touch her; a gloved hand on her thigh, his knee brushing against hers, stuff like that. But her favorite was how he seemed to be everywhere, all at once, in the dark confines of his bunk when his skin was so warm and soft despite his scars and all hers. She could kiss him all she wanted and delighted in the grunts and moans that he would emit when she would take him inside. He always felt so good—even when he would rut and thrust against her, still chasing his high after she had found hers three times already. Din was nothing but a giver. It was all so messy and beautiful and Y/N found herself half-wishing she could seal them both away in the Razor Crest for the rest of their lives, just so she could feel like she had him all to herself and he wanted her, too. 

And with the way he would hold her hips still when he finally finished, fingers curling near-painfully into her skin, Y/N liked to believe he might have thought about it, too. Din always did like to finish as deep as he could and she loved letting him, feeling it. 

And she might revel in the soft kiss he would always press against her brow when he caught his breath. Y/N liked to think that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to hideaway with her, too. 

But, eventually, they had to land and Y/N was happy to see another Mandalorian ship and a familiar New Senate ship land beside them. Shara walked out of the small ship, followed by a man with inky blank curls and a charming smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes as he introduced himself as, “Kes Dameron, Shara’s husband.” He explained that Shara had holo-called him and asked him to come on this last bit of adventure, reminding them of their time with the Rebellion decades ago. 

Y/N introduced herself and Mando—“Just call him Mando, he’ll answer if he wants.” And then they quickly grouped to try and finish a plan for the small outcropping of buildings just on the other side of the valley—where the captured officers said there was ‘valuable intel.’ They had spoken about it through their ships’ comms on the flight over, but the last details needed to be ironed out when they landed and saw the layout of the small base. It was quickly done and the small group spread out, trying to be subtle and quiet in their approach.

But, Y/N noticed Shara and Kes both constantly looking back toward their ship with nervous glances and it seemed like Kes was just waiting for someone to ask what was happening because as soon as Y/N stepped to his side and opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, he blurted out, “our son snuck onto the ship.”

Y/N choked on her breath. “What.” 

But then Din was nodding beside her. “That happens.” 

“It does not just happen!”

“Poe does what he wants, my love. He gets it from-”

“Do not say he gets that from me.” 

As the couple continued to bicker, Y/N felt Din reach out and take her hand, quietly leading her backward and away, silently helping her focus back on their mission. 

Invading the base was laughably easy—it seemed that it was barely guarded and the thermal scans revealed almost all of the ranking officers had sequestered themselves into a central office—probably trying to find a way to avoid the New Senate that they knew would be arriving soon. There were small clusters of other heat signatures but most of it was in a central location—an easy target.

The base was cold and clinical—and would have been nothing of note if Y/N hadn’t felt something pull at her spine like a ripcord. 

“What is it?” Din asked. 

“I don’t…” She drifted off as stopped in front of yet another inconspicuous durasteel door and waved her hand, making it spark as it slid open, overriding the locks and mechanisms. “Stars.” The single word choked her throat. 

The room was filled with kids. Each one of them had a helmet pressed over their heads—but it was not the strange little jumpsuits that captured her attention or the weird images that raced across the wall-to-wall screens—it was the pain. Despair. Hopelessness. It nearly bowled her over as soon as she stepped inside.

Two men, clad in black, quickly turned at the sudden intrusion and tried to draw their blasters but Y/N threw out her hand and pulled the weapons from their grips with ease—but she did not stop there. Before she could stop herself or realize what she was doing until she heard the hum of her lightsaber as she held it to one of the officer’s throats. 

“What are you doing to them?” 

“T-training!” The man sputtered. “They’re ‘troopers!”

And Y/N saw red and tossed the man across the room before almost all the kids gasped and Y/N’s rage quickly simmered. She winced and murmured an apology but the kids all stared back at her, wide-eyed. 

“Where are their parents? Families?” The other officer cowered as Din pointed his rifle in his direction. 

Easy target. Y/N stepped forward and dipped her head just enough to pin him with her gaze. “Where are they?” 

“Th-they don’t have any families. They’re orphans. Strays. No one-” 

“You’re lying.” The deception was rolling off him in waves. 

“They weren’t wanted!” Another roared only to be cracked across the face by a beskar-covered fist. 

Y/N saw the outline of a datapad in the officer’s coat and wrestled it free and unlocked it and her stomach dropped.

**

Shara and Kes were waiting at the West door, the small group of Mandalorians at the East, while Y/N and Din covered the North door. All exits covered. Y/N watched Din do a flurry of hand signals that everyone but her seemed to understand and all but chased after him as they stormed inside.

And if they were all more than a little trigger-happy, no one mentioned it when they finally stopped, dragging a handful of officers out into the daylight with their hands tied behind their backs. 

The children—all one hundred and fifty of them on the base—were out, slowly starting to enjoy the fresh air and letting their little uniforms get dirty on the damp grass. It looked like they had never been allowed to do something so simple and joyful. Y/N would never forget the images she saw on the datapad, what they were subjecting these innocent children to and calling it 'training.'

The Mand’alor had been notified of their discovery and it seemed all the other bases they’d invaded had the same, terrible encounter. There were thousands of children being ‘trained’ in the First Order’s Stormtrooper program all across the Unknown Regions of the Galaxy. 

While they waited for more transport to arrive, Kes had managed to already place about half of the children at their base, finding where they had come from and their family names. But others were harder to find. It was like the kids just…appeared. 

One such kid, was a boy with the kindest dark brown eyes and a sweet smile—he’d been given the “name” FN-2187. There was something truly special about him—aside from his gentle disposition and ability to make anyone smile—Y/N could sense it. And over the handful of days the adults tried to wrangle, feed, and teach the kids about the outside Galaxy while also trying to track down their families, Y/N found herself especially fond of him.

A young boy—who must have been the Damerons’ son, Poe, with his matching dark curls—was excitedly speaking with FN who seemed to wonder at every word coming from Poe’s mouth on the day the transports from Mandalore arrived. Poe had been running around with the kids every day to the chagrin of his parents who seemed unable to keep him from making it a point to talk to every single person every day, at least once. He was a rambunctious little man who always made FN smile—but Poe had made it a point to call the other boy Finn. 

Finn. That suited him nicely. 

And while Y/N was very protective, almost immediately, of the children, it seemed like Din had adopted each of them on sight. He would make sure each of them, individually, had enough food and was tucked into bed. Y/N even caught him holding a few of the younger ones to his chest when they were unable to sleep. 

(“Everyone has nightmares, little one.” 

“Even you, Mister Mando? Lieutenant Hux said that we-”

“Even I have nightmares,” Din would quietly say, wanting to replace their sense of authority and security from the terrible officers with someone…well, with someone who wore a little more beskar. “But I will be here through the night to make sure nothing will hurt you.” 

“Promise?” The little one asked. 

“I promise.”)

It was all very…beautiful. It felt right to see him like that, bringing back memories of him holding his Starchild to his chest.

It made her heart flutter and her gut clench for two entirely different yet somehow related reasons. 

And she kept quiet when Din held her a little tighter at night, reveling in every touch even if they were both too tired to speak much more than quiet a ‘goodnight’ to each other. 

They were both nearly asleep on their feet as they loaded a few kids into one ship and then a few more onto another, soon to be reunited with the families they had been ripped away from in infancy. The others they could not place would be taken back to Mandalore where they’d continue the search for their families or allow them to set their own paths under the guidance of the Mandalorians—dozens and dozens and dozens of Foundlings, it seemed. 

Little Finn was at Y/N’s side, holding her hand as the other children were loaded on the waiting starships. Din was helping them get settled and Y/N imagined him checking and rechecking their safety belts before they departed, leaving each of them with a quiet, kind word of encouragement. Finn was one of the unlucky few to have no family in his file—but perhaps that would be alright, she could help him find a new one. 

Poe was soon careening to their side and dragging Finn away with a promise of a new adventure and Shara soon followed with a small, hopeful smile on her face—Y/N could feel the apprehension rolling off her and tried to offer a comforting smile in return. 

They made idle conversation for a few moments before Shara cut to the chase, “if no other family comes forward for Finn, we would like to make sure he has a home. Poe has always wanted a younger brother and it seems they are nearly inseparable now.” 

Y/N sighed, thoughts quickly bouncing from one to another to another before she opened her mouth and hoped for the best. “I believe he’s special. Like me.” 

“Like Luke Skywalker,” Shara said. 

“Right,” Y/N nodded. “But Luke…Luke has a school, for people like us. Where he can learn to…well, he can learn how special he is.” 

“But what about family-”

“My…” oh, what was the word she needed? “My…mandalorian has his son there. He visits all the time. I’m sure Luke would allow another loophole. He knows how important family is—I would not tear him from another family.” 

Shara and Kes looked at each other, some silent conversation between them. Y/N briefly wondered if all couples had silent forms of communications—she could read Din’s body language from across the room and he almost always seemed to know that she needed a grounding touch. But then Shara nodded. “And Poe can come?” 

“Of course. Family’s family.”

**

Finn was nervous but excited as the Razor Crest landed on the hidden planet.

Y/N was speaking with him in quiet tones—it almost distracted Din enough to bungle the landing. She was so gentle with him—just like she had been with his Foundling. 

While they had both been busier than they had ever been before with bounties or running from Imps, it was…nice to see her in a different sort of atmosphere. She still vibrated with her certain brand of chaos, but it seemed to settle or divert into something else when she was trying to calm a young one down or teach them something new. 

It stirred something inside of him—well, it had always been there, but now it had risen to just simmer below his skin whenever he looked at her. 

Y/N was everything—everything. 

Despite her adamant ramblings and incessant dodging, Din knew something she didn’t. 

She was Mandalorian. 

Creed or no Creed—she was. 

The ramp lowered and Y/N had Finn’s little hand in hers as they walked out onto the dewy grass. “It’ll be just fine, Finn. I promise. Poe will come to visit every few cycles and-”

“And you and Mister Mando?” Finn asked quietly. “Will you visit, too?” 

Din watched Y/N slow them to a stop and then kneel down to Finn’s level. “Of course we’ll come visit you. We are only a holo-call away.” 

Finn gave them both a small smile and nodded before Y/N stood again and took his hand—Finn reached out and grabbed Din’s hand, too, as they neared the temple. 

Luke stepped out of the shadows with a knowing smile on his face. “Another? You are getting quite good at finding Force-Sensitives, Y/N.” Luke reached out and shook Finn’s hand with a small smile and introduced himself. “You have two Foundlings now. How many Foundlings are you allowed?” 

“As many as we are given,” Y/N answered. 

And Din almost gaped at that behind his helmet. He thought Y/N would deny it again—that they weren’t Foundlings, that she was not Mandalorian. But she embraced it. His chest squeezed.

“You found him!” Came a happy voice from within the temple and then Rey was sprinting out into the sunlight and tackling Y/N and Finn to the stone steps. “You finally found him!” 

“Rey!” The little princely kid said, running outside too, obviously trying to catch Rey. “You can’t just tackle people. We talked about this.” 

“But I dreamed of him,” Rey said with a large smile, still basically on top of Finn on the ground. “Did you dream of me?” 

“Um…” Finn’s eyes darted from Rey’s beaming face to Din to Y/N who simply nodded, like she knew his unasked question. “I think so.” 

And that was all the affirmation Rey needed. She sprung to her feet and hauled Finn up, too. And then the pair was scurrying away, down the hill and into the green valley. 

A coo grabbed Din’s attention and his Foundling was gently hugging the top of his boot with a toothy smile. He bent and scooped the little green boy into his arms and sighed—probably a little too loudly—happily as his little green hands smacked against his helmet. Flashes of the adventures around the temple came and went with another happy noise. 

“Hello, my Starchild,” Y/N said in a soft voice as she finally stood, finger trailing over one of the little alien’s ears. He cooed in return, holding out a hand for her to take and wrapped his little fingers over her finger she held out toward him. 

And she smiled. 

Din didn’t even hear the words she said as she spoke to Luke and Ben. He watched her perfect mouth curl around words but he didn’t hear them. He just felt the warmth of her body as she pressed against his side and the way her hand slid across his back as she inched closer. 

He hadn’t missed how he called the little green one my Starchild. Just as he was his Foundling…his ad’ika. That was what Y/N had called him—wasn’t it? His child. Not just a Foundling. His son. It sounded right, felt right. Just as if felt right to have her at his side with his child in his arms. 

“And you, Mando?” Luke’s voice cut through the haze of his mind. “Do you feel any different? Now that it is finished?” 

Finished. A funny word. 

It felt like something was just starting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I want to apologize if this chapter felt a little all over the place. I lost my grandmother at the beginning of quarantine and haven't really processed all of that and these past two weeks saw two of my surrogate grandfathers pass away quite quickly. I am just...a bit lost right now. I'm trying to write--in an attempt to feel something good, to help other people feel something good in this crazy world. I hope this was okay. I will try to get the last chapter out soon and before the start of Season 2, as promised. And I do still want to write the Nightsister AU, too. It might just take some time. Thank you for bearing with me. I love all of you very much. xx


	12. The Riduur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO MUCH for being so kind about the last chapter and for the encouragement. But I DID IT! I finished before SEASON 2!!! I hope you all like how I wrapped everything up--even if it is probably one of the most self-indulgent chapters I have ever written. Please let me know what you think.

It took a week for the New Senate to find the people and systems behind the First (and Final) Order guilty of—well, basically everything. Y/N was surprised it took that long but Din shook his head, murmuring that the Senate would always drag its feet—if it ever moved at all. 

She had faith in Leia, what she stood for—but the New Senate had proven to be just as convoluted and irksome as the Republic before it. Y/N knew she would need to keep herself—and her Foundlings, her younglings—safe on her own. But right now, that didn’t matter. 

What _did_ matter was Din and how, right now, he was trying to delicately (as delicate as Din could be anyway) reattach Kay’s arm.

The droid had accidentally lost the appendage to an automatic door on her yacht. While her pilot droid, FA-4, swore up and down that they had nothing to do with it, Y/N was quite certain there had been a bit of a kerfuffle and Kay had definitely ruffled some wires and lost an arm for a bad attitude. Of course, Y/N had not seen it happen and had stumbled in on Din trying to reattach the arm, muttering, “she’s gonna think I did this, you know. Shouldn’t you move faster than that?” 

Y/N leaned against the wall and watched him work for a few moments, absolutely delighted to see him so careful with her droids even though he was still largely weary of them as a whole. But they would always chirp a ‘good morning’ if they passed each other in the halls or he sat in the pilot’s chair when he tired of watching the stars streak across the viewports in her…well, _their_ rooms, and he went down to the control room. 

It had been almost four month cycles since they had returned from the Unknown Regions and Mandalore had started trying to piece families back together. Only a few dozen children were left still without families—well, that wasn’t necessarily true. Mandalore was a family—dysfunctional and chaotic and a little overbearing every once in a while—but a family nonetheless. 

And they had called Din and Y/N back again. He’d just finished a hunt and had a few slabs of carbonite on one of the lower levels of the yacht waiting to be delivered to Karga on Nevarro, but this took precedence.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Kay said.

Din grunted and adjusted his hold. Y/N watched him struggle for a little longer, listening to Kay berate Din’s good-willed attempts at reassembly, before she stepped into the room and cleared her throat. “I’ll handle it, Din.” 

“I didn’t do it.” 

She laughed. “I know. I know.” Y/N trailed her fingers against the back of his neck in thanks before he stood and knocked his helmet gently against her temple. 

“Kay’s a brat.” 

The droid let out an indignant huff but was happy when Y/N was able to reattach the limb without too much effort after Din excused himself.

“Don’t antagonize FA-4 again," she said as she mentioned the petit pilot droid. "You’ll lose your head next time, I’m sure.” Y/N patted the droid’s chest as she finished. “You’re lucky one of the IGs didn’t come up. They like FA more than you.” 

“That is because they all know I am your favorite.” Kay said it with such finality that Y/N had to laugh again.

“I love each of you equally.” 

“That is a lie.” 

“Kay. Hush,” Y/N said with a chuckle. “Now, I need you to keep everyone on the ship when we land.” 

The Razor Crest had been out of commission for nearly a week after one of Din’s bounties had tried to sabotage it while evading the infamous bounty hunter and Y/N didn’t mind finally using her yacht again even if she would miss the strange comfort the Crest provided. The droids were good company too, even if Din still seemed a little apprehensive. But she did catch him patting Kay awkwardly on the back in thanks after helping him load the carbonite slabs and bath onto the yacht from the Razor Crest. 

He was trying. 

And she loved him for it. She loved him for a lot of things, a lot of reasons, actually. 

Had she said anything to let him know that?

Of course not. It was enough to have him close—both of them were aware of the presence of feelings. They were blatantly obvious. But to say it out loud was something…different. She had tried to say it once before and had been nearly choked by the words themselves. Her confession had been (blessedly or not, she was still undecided) interrupted. 

“The Mandalorian is fond of you.” 

“Yes,” Y/N said as she grabbed a rag to wipe the small bit of oil from her hands before she double checked the bracket at the droid’s shoulder. “And I’m fond of him.”

“He wants to rip out my circuits.” 

Y/N threw the rag at Kay’s face with a huff. “If he wanted that, it would have already happened. He was trying to help you.” 

“Then why was he so bad at it?” Kay rotated the reattached arm this way and that, as if showing how poorly Din did his work. But there was nothing to look at. She didn’t need to correct Din’s work. He knew what he had been doing—he was just slow at it. It wasn’t as if he needed to repair many droids before she all but thrust him into her droid-filled, portable home. 

“You’re a brat.” 

The two bickered good-naturedly for a few moments longer before Y/N excused herself and told Kay to stop picking on the others if losing limbs didn’t want to become a common occurrence and then set off to find Din. 

She found him down in the lower levels, quietly speaking with their Starchild via holo. His cherubic face was lit up in blue light and cooing, waving his little hands as if he could reach out and touch his dad. 

“I’ll be there soon. I promise,” Din said. There was an answering babble. “Yes, I’ll bring Cyar’ika. It isn’t like she doesn’t want to see you.”

Y/N leaned against the wall and listened to the mostly-nonsensical conversation before quietly saying goodbye after Rey’s muted voice rang out over the call, wondering where the little green one had gone and then Ben’s face appeared with an apologetic frown. “Sorry, Mister Mando. I guess we have to go.” 

Before the call ended, Y/N would swear she heard a soft voice attempt to say, “bye-bye, Buir!”

“Are you done hiding in the shadows?” Din asked without looking at her as he pocketed the holo. 

Y/N slipped closer to him with a laugh. “I wasn’t hiding.” She settled onto his lap without much warning and snickered at his surprised ‘oof’ as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and tapped her forehead against his. “I just didn’t want to interrupt. Father-son time is important.” 

“He misses you, too.” 

Y/N hummed and filed away how he didn’t refute how their Starchild was his son—not a Foundling, but a son. “But he will always love you just a smidge more. Saving someone from Imps tends to endear you to them.” 

He sighed behind his helmet and then squeezed at her hips, pulling a huffed laugh from her smiling mouth. “I know there is no winning this argument with you.” 

Y/N smiled a little wider. “It is fun to see you try though. I hope you never stop.”

**

Mandalore had welcomed the former 'trooper trainees into their ranks without blinking a metaphorical eye. The children unclaimed by anyone after the extensive search throughout the Galaxy were simply new citizens of the fabled planetary system and had been given a choice: become a Mandalorian or forge their own path once they were of age. Most had chosen to swear the Creed when they came of age.

All of the children, aside from Finn, they had discovered at that terrible base had either been placed back in the loving arms of their families or had readily asked to become a Mandalorian. 

Y/N knew Din felt a certain sense of pride knowing that he had helped shepherd in a new generation of Mandalorians. And that was the reason they had been called back to Mandalore. A handful of the older, former ‘trooper trainees had reached the appropriate age and were swearing to the Creed and had requested Y/N and Din both be present for the small ceremony. They weren’t going to ever say no. 

Y/N brushed her fingers across the small strip of beskar at her hairline and adjusted her belt, lightsaber slapping against her thigh, trying to make sure she looked presentable. The ceremony was small but she still wanted to give the kids—the newest Mandalorians—a good impression. Even if it did bite at something that still hurt deep in the recesses of her heart. They found a home. They were welcomed. They-

“Ready, Cyar’ika?” Din’s question silenced everything else. Gloved hands curled over her shoulders and squeezed. 

Maybe it was time she realized she didn’t have to have the same path as Din or Bo-Katan or literally any other Mandalorian. She was Mandalorian. She was a Jedi. And maybe she would have to one day find a true balance between the two, but today? Today she could just be Y/N. “Yeah. I’m ready.” 

Din squeezed her shoulders again and she shivered a little bit as his hands trailed down her arms to squeeze her hands before he stepped back and led them both out toward the palace. 

The ceremony was brief and to the point—but beautiful. Much like everything else on Mandalore, but perhaps she was just a smidge biased. 

But, the Mand’alor had one more surprise up her beskar-covered sleeve and had asked Y/N and Din to be the first Mandalorians to greet the newest batch after finishing swearing to their Creed—and a little something extra. 

Y/N was happy to give each of them a few words of encouragement while Din was given the honor of handing over bits of beskar for them to take to the forge to make their helmets. Every single one of them held Din and Y/N’s arm in greeting and thanks before all but scurrying away with their prize, eager to start on their new paths. 

“We have lives now—lives that are ours and ours alone,” a young woman said, beaming up at Din as she clutched her small bit of beskar to her chest. “Thank you. Thank you both so much.” 

And Y/N would take it to the grave that she heard Din sniffle behind his helmet and quickly pulled the attention toward herself. “We know you are all capable of countless things. You are Mandalorian—greatness is waiting. This is the Way.”

“This is the Way.” 

A handful of the kids asked Din and Y/N to come to the Armory and they were not able to tell them no. She had to bite her lip to keep her smile from hurting her face as Din’s warm hand stayed on the small of her back on the walk there and as they watched each of the helms be forged in the raging fires of the capital. 

Y/N liked having him so close, without fear of repercussion or judgement. She sank a little further into him and sighed happily as one of his arms slung across her chest, dragging her back to his chest and she eventually turned to press her cheek against the cool beskar and she nearly laughed as she heard him sigh. 

One of her fingers pressed against the blemish he had earned on Exegol—the marred bit of beskar over his heart and her mind start to bounce from one thought to the next even as the line started to thin and she wished each of the younglings—wait, new _Mandalorians_ luck in the battles ahead.

Din deserved to have an unblemished suit of armor. He had earned it. Before she could ask for him to take the piece off, he was already unbuckling it, pressing it into her hands with a stiff breath from behind his helmet. 

Y/N smiled and let her fingers curl around it, feeling the warmth that had leached into the metal. Din’s warmth. “I’ll be right back.” And then she was scurrying away toward one of the smelting pots. She turned as she heard Din following and smiled. “I promise I'm not stealing it.” 

“No,” Din said, voice strangely tight. “No, I know. I-”

A loud CRASH cut off the rest of his words and the armorer, a stout man with a charred-looking bucket over his head and thick, weathered gloves and apron turned to look at them. “Whaddya need?” 

Y/N handed over the Hal-cabur and tried to fight the nervous bubble sin her stomach with a smile. “Can you patch that?” 

The Armorer turned it over and over in his gloved hands. His helmeted head looked toward Din. “Yours?” 

Din nodded. 

The Armorer looked back to Y/N. “I’ll need more beskar to patch it. We don’t have enough to spare-”

And even before she took her next breath, she was taking the well-worn strip of cloth from around her head and handing it over. She watched, a final time, as the small strip of her beskar glinted in the glowing flames of the armory. “That should be enough, right?” 

Both the Armorer and Din let out a strangled noise. 

“What?”

The Armorer reached out and took the beskar in a light grip. “Are you sure?” 

“Cyar’ika?” Din asked. “Do you-” The words sounded strangled in his throat and Y/N frowned, trying to understand what was happening. 

The Armorer’s helmet swiveled from him to her and then back to him before stretching out his arm to place her small strip of beskar in Din’s hand and the chest plate in hers. “You two need to talk.” And then he was marching away, ushering the group of other Armorers out and the door slid shut behind them. 

And Y/N was alone with Din again.

“Did…did I do something wrong?” 

“No, Cyar’ika. No. But…I know that you didn’t learn all of our customs. But giving someone a piece of beskar, especially joining your beskar with someone else’s-”

“Oh, Stars. Did I just propose?” 

“Basically.” 

“Oh.” She paused. “Well…um…is that okay?” Still a whiz with words. 

“I, uh. Technically, I proposed first.” His gloved finger tapped against the bit of armor in her hands. “You walked away before I could finish.” 

“Oh,” Y/N said, again. “Well, finish now.” 

“You-” He suddenly cleared his throat and then reached for her hands—it was a little awkward with the bits of beskar they were both holding but they made it work. “I had a family—before all this. It was small and good and I was okay with being alone—just me and the Child when I could. But then you came into my life like some force of nature and I…” the words trailed off. “I’m bad at speeches. I love you. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have adventures with you. I want to raise warriors with you. I want to call you mine—forever. And I want to be called yours.” 

Y/N didn’t even realize she was crying until Din reached out and gently brushed the tears away from her cheeks. “Ni kar'tayl gar darasuum,” Y/N said in return, knowing he would understand. She loved him. She loved him. She loved him. And he loved her. 

Din pulled off his helmet and Y/N quickly pressed a kiss to his lips, nearly knocking their noses together in the process. But he laughed against her mouth and kissed her again. 

“Do you accept me?” Y/N asked, feeling her heart try to claw its way up her throat. 

“You know I do. Do you accept me, mesh’la?” 

“You know I do,” Y/N repeated with a growing smile.

**

What they had wasn’t normal. It wasn’t some boy-meets-girl-they-date-and-get married story. This was a lonely man who found a home with a little green alien with powers he could never understand. And then he found the love of his life with a woman who should have only been a simple bounty. Who should have been an enemy. But she wasn’t. She was the love of his life, and now? She was his wife, his riduur. The surrogate mother of his little green adika and soon to bring another Djarin into Galaxy before they celebrated their first anniversary.

And Din still could not believe it. Y/N had given him innumerable and immeasurable gifts and he wished he could put it into words how much he loved her—but he had a feeling she knew. 

His hand brushed against her stomach as they both panted, trying to catch their breaths in the dim light of their room. 

“They’re not big enough to kick yet, Din,” Y/N said, still a bit out of breath—but she settled her hand over his with a huff. “Insatiable.” 

Din hummed and leaned up just a bit to see something glisten against the skin of her inner thighs and a familiar sense of strange pride curled in his stomach. Yes, he was insatiable. But so was she—there would be a new generation of Djarins soon. And many of them, if they both had their say. She was glowing—even more so than usual, even if Y/N hated hearing him say it. _“It’s just the sweats,”_ she would say. _“And you’re in love.”_

He didn’t refute either of those points. 

Y/N got up to clean herself up and slipped back into her pajamas before she crawled back into bed beside him.

Din opened his mouth to say something else when a familiar coo sounded and then the door to their room slid open. Din was quick throw a blanket over himself and felt Y/N roll into his shoulder and stifle a laugh as Kay walked in, holding their son in large mechanical arms, who was waving frantically at his parents. 

“This one would not stop moving things in his room.” Kay said before setting the child on the edge of the bed. 

Din quickly scooped the little one up and let his tiny hands press against his cheeks. “We talked about that, little one.” He didn’t truly pay attention to Y/N half-heartedly scolding Kay for walking in without knocking—Din was too happy to have his son in his arms and his wife beside him in a warm bed. His Tribe would be well taken care of with the haul of bounties waiting in the cargo hold of the yacht—even if they were now starting to reintegrate with the rest of Mandalore. 

Life was good. 

Kay eventually left and Y/N stole the little one from Din’s hold, letting him slip back into his sleep trousers that he’d hastily discarded almost as soon as he had put them on when he spotted Y/N gently cradling her stomach in the mirror with a soft smile on her face. That same smile was on her face now as she held the little one to her chest and wiggled her fingers letting her small collection of knick-knacks fly around above their heads in a lazy circle. His son cooed happily and waved his hands, too. 

Din was content to watch the interaction for a few moments. The simple, strange domesticity of the scene was not lost on him. Everything that had led him to this moment had been a mess of broken rules and loopholes and he would not change it for anything. 

Y/N turned and looked at him, smiling. His heart tried to sing behind his ribs. 

“You’ll have to keep your hands to yourself when we land on New Alderaan,” Y/N said, turning back to the child in her arms. “We have a big party to attend, Starchild. Although, Ben probably wouldn’t mind the distraction. You know how he hates attention.” 

There was an answering coo. 

“Hm, yes. Good plan. We’ll have to see if Lea and Han behave themselves.” 

Din doubted that would happen and tried to prepare himself for both his son and wife to make a scene at the Little Prince’s gala—he was apparently old enough to formally take on the mantle of Crown Prince of New Alderaan. It was a big deal, at least to Y/N and the little princely kid, who had insisted that Y/N, Din, and the little one come to the ceremony. Din had been happy to accept the invitation and pick his son up from the temple for a few days. 

Briefly, Din wondered if all his children would inherit their mother’s abilities. 

He found he wouldn’t mind if they did. Y/N was proof that a person could be both Jetii and Mandalorian. He would love them either way—he already did.

**

The reception was lavish. Grand in every sense of the word. Din gently shushed her sniffles and squeezed her hand gently. Very few people knew who they were—some whispering that they must be the Mandalorian envoy because of Din’s shining helmet while others eyed the pair of lightsabers on Y/N’s belt—one of them was made of beskar and stamped with the mudhorn signet, a wedding present from Din. But the questioning stares from stuffy diplomats didn’t matter. Finn and Poe were currently at the large table holding the vast array of desserts, sneaking sweets into their trouser pockets with gleeful, conspiratorial smiles.

“Do you mind if I steal her for a moment or two?” Ben asked, appearing behind Din with a soft smile and quiet footsteps. His blue cape was stretched across his shoulders and matched the dark hue of his tunic and trousers. Every bit of the beloved Prince of New Alderaan. He was finally settling into the man Y/N always knew him to be. The small crown on his head suited him nicely.

Din smiled and tapped his forehead against Y/N’s before she stood, not waiting for his answer. She never did and he loved her for it. 

The crowd parted as Ben led Y/N out onto the gleaming dance floor and the band played a soft tune as his big hands took hers and led her around in a simple dance, holding her a bit close, one hand in hers and the other on the small of her back. Y/N looked at the simple crown that now adorned his dark locks. “It suits you.” 

Ben smiled, cheeks pink. “I’m glad you think so. I wouldn’t be here, with this shiny bit of metal on my head if you hadn’t…if you hadn’t taken that bratty little kid under your wing all those years ago.” The words were caught in his throat. “Knowing you believed me, loved me, kept me from straying. And you did, no matter how much I annoyed you or tested your patience.” 

Y/N laughed and squeezed his hand. “Well, you still test my patience, Little Prince. Part of your charm.” 

Both of them caught sight of Rey basically dragging Din out onto the dance floor and had to stifle a laugh at Din’s less than hidden panic. The pairs twirled around each other, one decidedly more graceful than the other but it would be rude to say which was which. A small green boy soon wandered his way onto the floor and Din bent and scooped him up ease. Rey leaned and snuck a kiss against the Child’s brow. 

“Truly,” Ben whispered softly, “our strange, little family is one for the ages.” 

Din eventually managed to evade Rey’s dancing after Shara and Kes gained her attention and he settled into Y/N’s outstretched arms as the music continued to play. Their son was currently held in Finn and Poe’s careful grip as they all continued to sample the sweets table. Han and Leia had stayed on their best behavior and were even dancing together—perhaps something akin to a reconciliation was on the horizon. 

Y/N felt Din’s hand twitch in hers as they moved, almost on beat—like he was stopping himself from pressing his fingers against her stomach. She smiled and squeezed his hand in return before placing it against her stomach for just a moment, indulging his protective nature even when he wouldn’t allow himself. “I love you,” she whispered. 

His head tilted forward to touch hers. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote, folks. Thanks for going on this adventure with me. I hope you liked it. I love you all very much. xx

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this fan-art and my hand slipped:  
> https://800poundproductions.tumblr.com/post/189618232547/my-sonheneeds-a-teacher  
> I wish I could make art. But I am a gremlin with zero artistic ability.  
> Please tell me what you think! I hope to have the next chapter up soon!


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